


Heir to the Armies of Night

by ArrowsandStars



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Illyria - Freeform, Mates, Post-A Court of Wings and Ruin, Slow Build, The Night Court, Velaris, court of dreams - Freeform, prolly some battles idk
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-06-19 04:19:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 33,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15502173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArrowsandStars/pseuds/ArrowsandStars
Summary: Vysrah is an Illyrian warrioress, trained by Cassian and Nesta both, triumphing over Illyrian tradition and conditions. Nearly a century after the War with Hybern, the Court of Night is secure, perfect conditions for Cassian to nurture his protege, and appoint her Second in command of Rhysand's armies. But a command post is not all she discovers when she meets the Court of Dreams.





	1. Chapter 1

The Illyrian war camp Cassian and I were now putting behind us slowly faded from view, the small, open camp area giving way to harsh, craggy mountains. I felt something loosen in my chest when it fully faded from sight. I am Illyrian, the magic of these mountains flows through my blood, through my magic, the tattoos of it’s people adorn my skin. But this is not where I know I should be. This harsh place is half of me. A fact the camps and Tribes would never, never, let me forget. I adapted to this place, and triumphed over it, over it’s rituals, its harshness. The three deep purple siphons embedded in my armor a glorious testament to it. I’d polished them every night before bed since I’d earned them, their purple depths channeling, honing my strange mix of High Fae and Illyrian magical gifts.  
All the same, these mountains, the people who’d shunned and grappled and toughened me, weren’t all. The more miles my commander and I put between us and the camps, the lighter my heart became, until I was soaring, quick and fast, over tree tops, laughing as I soared up past Cassian on a mountain updraft. My mother had been High Fae, making me an outcast in the Illyrian camps, a bastard. Decades and decades since females were allowed to join the ranks of Illyrian warriors, since wing clipping had been made punishable by worse than death, bastard was still a word with crushing weight to the tribes.  
But not to me, or to Cassian, or to Azriel or even to my High Lord. A grin spread on my face. My thoughts turned to our destination, Velaris, seat of my High Lord’s court, as well as his home. I beat my wings faster, the part of me urging me to leave Illyrian life on the steppes and war camps tugging, like a beacon. Serve my High Lord, and my Commander. Protect his court, his family. I glanced at Cassian. He had been my advocate in my camp, convincing, baiting the Leader of the camp to let me train against the men when I’d leveled past all my other female compatriots, at age twenty, I was much faster, more skilled than I should have been for a female initiate. I smiled at the memory. At thirty, when I had decided to continue training past what most females were alloted in that camp, the camp Leader refused, one of the last truly unmovable and nasty Illyrian camp leaders. After a visit from Cassian and Rhysand, a compromise was struck. Cassian had trained me himself, moving into the little Illyrian camp with his hellbeast mate, and turning it on its head. The thought of seeing Nesta again had me grinning and flying faster still. Nesta, the snarl to Cassian’s smirk. I loved them both so thoroughly, and I realized as I sped towards Velaris, that I sped towards my family too.

...


	2. The River House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few introductions...

I was pulled out of my speeding flight and thoughts nearly an hour later, when Cassian closed his wings in front of me, plummeting back until he was beside me and then snapping them out again, a difficult maneuver in the mountain winds, but to Cassian it was effortless, like walking, or parrying a blade. Banking closer to him, I raised my eyebrows, a silent question, and Cassian rolled over top of me in the air, a nimble trick of one closed wing, the other flung out wide. I filed it away to attempt the next time I was flying alone.

“Just checking in on my new Second in command.” he said, a lopsided grin on his mouth. “Wouldn’t want you to drop from the skies of exhaustion before we’re even halfway to Velaris.” 

My speed sagged a bit at his words, at the hours of flight yet to go, and he grinned at me. I stuck my tongue out at him and leveled into my cruising speed, just a few hairs faster than Cassian’s.   
He flapped ahead of me anyway, and called back, “Don’t look so solemn, Batling, Mor is going to winnow us the second half of the journey.”

Batling. My chest warmed like I had taken a shot of Illyrian whiskey. His nickname for me for the two decades he and Nesta had lived on and off in the Illyrian camp with me. One at least, always there, always training me, always pushing me and my gifts, magical and otherwise, Illyrian and High Fae; and also attending to the peace that had settled over the Illyrian mountains after the rebellion that followed the war.

I grinned up at my commander, and lazily folded into a summersault in mid air, rolling by him and shooting past him like a diving hawk.

Cassian bellowed with laughter, and I smirked. Finally! A flight maneuver he didn’t know! 

“Beat that!” I called back to him over the wind.

“Such insolence from my Second!”, He called back to her on the wind, “I’ll have to find myself a new one.” 

I laughed, Cassian’s crooked humor matched my own, had shaped my own, and swooped past him, my only reliable victory over him was speed, and called, “You’re stuck with me now! I’m never coming back to these mountains again if I can help it.”   
The thought had me turning another summersault in mid air, and laughing into the brisk mountain air currents.   
Free of the Illyrian camps. I was free. 

“I won’t make you go back for at least half a century.” Cassian said on his way by.

He glanced back at me, as if to check as if I was watching, and then flapped his wings twice, gaining momentum. My stomach sank. Cassian turned three flawless somersaults in the air without losing a foot of altitude and called back, “Don’t let the fancy title go to your head, Batling, you’ve still got plenty to learn.” 

As if the title could ever cover up how much I still felt I had to learn. I was barely fifty to his near six hundred years! But every time I thought about my new title and position, by back straightened. It warmed me. Steadied me. Second in command of the Armies of the Night Court. I catalogued Cassian’s technique and form for the somersaults in my head, and then flapped to his right, settling in, scanning the air above and below for threats, even though I already knew there were none. 

I was now the head of the Night Court’s army when Cassian was injured- or worse. I swallowed hard, the responsibility, the duty, settling over me like the weighted vests I’d learned to fly with, and it settled me. Nearly half a century had passed since the war with Hybern that my High Lord and Lady had triumphed in, and their Court had had a century to craft the broken world anew. It was working. Slowly. 

Another hour and a half of flying had us swooping down to a clearing as the sun drifted low on the horizon. We landed, and stretched out flight-sore muscles and wings, waiting for Mor to arrive. As if my thought had summoned her, The Morrigan winnowed into the clearing. She was a member of Cassian’s family I had not yet met, but greeted and hugged me as if she had known me for decades. 

I was a bit in awe of her, her presence and beauty and power, until she gushed to me, “Oh it’s so nice to finally meet you! Cassian’s kept you in those mountains, bragging about you for the past twenty years, never once bringing you to visit.” 

She breezed to Cassian, hugging him warmly, and my nerves settled. Cassian bragged about me. To his family. 

I smiled, warmed through, and said, “I turned him down on every offer to leave until I earned my siphons.”   
“They’re beautiful, and congratulations. May they serve you well.”

I bowed my head in thanks at the traditional end to her statement, and Mor swept us into darkness, her deep, honey brown eyes merry and welcoming as a warm hearth. 

I’d expected a palace, but where Mor winnowed us, while huge and lavish and stately, was no palace. It was comfortable, its huge size failing to make it feel baren or cavern-like. Mor took my hand, and started guiding me towards the sweeping staircase, and Cassian kept up at my other side.

Mor was saying, “I’ll show you your rooms, and where you can change into something not leathery for dinner if you want, Cassian and Az usually wear armor, but that doesn’t mean you have to."  
Cassian stuck his tongue out at Mor over my head, winked at me, and peeled off, apparently heading to he and Nesta’s quarters. He’d been gone from here for a week, I didn’t want to be in that wing of the house when they remet. They could be… ferocious. Mor must have thought the same way, because we headed the opposite direction, up more stairs and around few corners, to a door she opened and led me inside. The room inside was on scale with the rest of the massive house, the bed expanded for my wings, as well as the bathtub, I realized when I peeked inside. All of it was beautiful and functional. My High Lady’s paintings decorating the walls. Mor left after the brief tour, letting me unwind after my day of flying. I took a scalding hot bath, soaking the sore muscles in my neck, back and wings. I had not covered so many miles in one flight before. 

When I emerged, a steaming cup of tea sat on the dressing table, and I inspected the drawers for clothes as I sipped. Cassian and Azriel, another member of Cassian’s family I had yet to meet, might wear their leathers to dinner, but I would opt for something more comfortable. 

Once I had dressed in comfortable leggings and a night blue shirt that showed the ends of my tattoos on my chest and near my elbows, polished the horns on my wings, braided back my damp hair, and drained my tea to the dregs, I felt fresh, as though I hadn’t flown all day. I inspected myself in the mirror in the bathing room. Freckles, a few shades lighter than my hair, coated me, fingertips and eyelids and everywhere in between. The few other fae I’d met with them had seemed to distain them, but I loved mine. I loved the way they offset the deep blue whorls of my tattoos, and contrasted with the hard earned muscles shifting underneath them. I grinned to myself. Enough primping. The sun was down outside, and the stars shone overhead. I shoved my feet into silk slippers that were waiting by the door, and stepped out into the hall. I followed the sound of Mor’s laughter to a room lined with couches. A hearth glowed with warmth in one corner, contrasting beautifully with the back wall of the room, made of panes of glass, showing off Velaris’s beauty at night. Mor uncurled from the couch, pressing a glass of wine into my hand, and led me over to where several people I didn’t recognize sat. I sat next to Mor, and was introduced to Elain, her mate Lucien, and lastly a small female named Amren. 

She sat curled in an armchair by the fire, surrounded by sectional couches that held everyone else, a cup of steaming mulled wine releasing steam that matched her pewter eyes. I dipped my head to her in respect, I knew what she was, what she had been and sacrificed. 

Her smile deepened, so I added, “What do you use on your lips to get them so red?”

Amren sipped her wine. “Blood.” was her cool reply.

I didn’t so much as blink, but cold snaked down my spine at the ancient little beast by the fire before me. Her smile widened like she knew.

“Ugh, Amren!” Mor exclaimed beside me. “That’s not true.” she said, turning to me. 

“I know.” I replied sweetly and sipped my wine.

“Anymore.” Amren said, coiled like a cat.

I couldn’t hide my gulp this time.

Mor shot Amren a scalding look and hissed, “How many times do we have to tell you not to intimidate our house guests?”

Amren sipped her wine passively, so Mor turned back to me, “And she won’t even tell me what she uses on her lips, although I’ve tried to get her to for centuries.”

Amren smirked again and shifted, summoning a small red stick from nowhere and tossing it to me, where I caught it easily. 

Mor squeaked in outrage, but Amren simply replied, “The black you and Feyre used on the last trip to the Court of Nightmares.”

Mor summoned a slender stick, presumably the black lipstick, and tossed it to Amren, who caught it and smiled, a red stick nearly identical to my own sailed to Mor. 

“I’m feeling generous.” Amren mused, sampling the black on her wrist.

Mor grinned and summoned a mirror, swiping the blood red onto her lips with precision strokes. 

I examined my own, it was a slightly different shade of red, brighter than the deep color Mor had. She passed me her small mirror, and I swiped it on. It brightened my face, accenting my dark brows and pale amber eyes. I smiled at myself.

“Look at us,” Amren drawled, black lipped and gorgeous, “Just us girls, sharing secrets and bonding.”

I looked pointedly towards Lucien, on the other end of the couch, pointedly studying one of the High Lady’s paintings, and Mor burst into giggles. Elain followed her, and even Amren smirked.

I sipped my wine, smiling. I had never felt so comfortable around people so fast. 

I examined my glass, surprised not to find red smudges there, and Amren said, “I charmed it against smudging, it only comes off when you wash it off.”  
Mor immediately demanded the spell, and this time, Elain chimed in with her demand.  
…  
Cassian and Nesta strolled into the room around ten minutes later, his right wing wrapped around her shoulder, tucking her close. Male, Illyrian pride limning his every pore at the woman next to him. They had been mated for decades, and Cassian still seemed so struck by Nesta it made my throat tighten. I wanted to find that someday. Nesta nodded to everyone else in the room, but smiled to me, stepping around Cassian’s wing to come and give me a swift, hard hug. More of an ‘I missed you’ than Nesta would ever say with words.   
She settled down beside me, and Cassian next to her. Conversation milled, but there was a sense that we were waiting. 

I knew for who, but still I turned to Cassian and asked, “Who else are we waiting for?”

“Rhys, Feyre, and Azriel.” He replied, settling his wing smoothly around Nesta. She shot him a hard look, casting a glance around the room, but settled back against her mate when she saw no one was paying much attention. “They should be here soon, and then we’ll all be introduced properly.”

I settled a wave of nerves with a deep breath, steadying myself. I saw Cassian nod slightly in approval, and then he turned and said something snarky to Amren, and Mor was tapping my shoulder to get my attention at something Elain had asked, and I was swept along in the stream of conversation flow until Lucien was asking me about my favoured throwing knife, and I was miming how Cassian had taught me to move my wrist. I fell in with them so easily, and before twenty minutes had passed, my cheeks hurt from grinning, and laughing.   
...

When my High Lord and High Lady arrived, I felt it shudder through the house, their interwoven strength echoing through the stones.   
I looked to Cassian, he rolled his eyes over to me, tying back his damp hair into a loop at the back of his head, and muttered, “Showoffs.” to me over Nesta’s braided hair.   
She huffed a laugh, and I smiled, a coil of tension loosening in my gut that their power had roiled in my own magic. Amren studied me carefully from across the room, black lips pursing in thought, and then they were at the doorway.   
My High Lord and Lady. I lurched to my feet, and Nesta grabbed my wine glass before I could drop it on the rug. Cassian rose after me, and a sharp tug had me focusing just over my High Lords shoulder. Shadows concealed a male behind him, dressed in Illyrian leathers glinting with syphons. His eyes settled on me and narrowed, and my very being lurched, like a magical tug at my gut, but not quite. 

How much wine had I had? I thought to myself before Cassian guided me to Rhysand and Feyre, and that shadow cloaked male. 

Cassian told them my name and title, the words still seeming foreign to my ears. Vysrah Glyoh, Second in Command to Cassian. I nodded to the shadow cloaked male Cassian had identified as Azriel, and then turned, and bowed deeply before my High Lord and Lady, and said, “Just Vysrah, if you would, your Highnesses.” Let my family name stay in the mountains.

Feyre, dressed in a sweater and leggings similar to my own, said, “Oh none of that!” and embraced me. “We’ve been so excited to meet you! Call us Rhys and Feyre please!”

She was so warm and friendly, I soaked it in, her acceptance. Her eyes danced as she looked to her mate, her arm still around my shoulders, politely careful of my wings. I followed her gaze, and was looking into the face of my High Lord, the male who had granted me the freedom to stand here, strong and trained and able to fly.   
I bowed my head to him, High Lord to Warrior, and he stepped forwards, clasping my arm like an Illyrian, and simply said, “Welcome to my Court, Vysrah.”


	3. Azriel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadows call to shadows.

My head spun with awe, and I felt my cheeks heat when I found myself unable to talk. Cassian clasped my shoulder, giving me a moment, and said to Rhys, “Not even five sentences and you’ve shell shocked my protege with your pretty words.” Cassian said in mock outrage. 

“Protege!!” I blurted to Cassian.

I had definitely had too much wine.

“Have some mercy on her!” a deep voice chidded behind me. I turned to look at Azriel. 

Amusement danced in his hazel eyes, and he offered his arm to me, I clasped it, and he said, “Well met.” 

The Illyrian greeting gave me a tether, and I followed the rest of the group back to the couches, reclaiming my own spot by Nesta and Mor. I sighed as I sat back down, awestruck and tight chested, happy to listen to the others for a while and reorient myself. The high level of my position made me dizzy as it sank in while I listened to Mor and Elain and Lucien fill Cassian in on what had occurred while he had been gone.   
I glanced down into my lap, where my hands rested around my wine glass. Something black clung to the back of my hand, I suppressed my startle, and inspected it. It looked like smoke. It clung to the back of my hand, deepening the shadows around it. Shadows. I snuck a glance at Azriel, at the shadowsinger. He looked like he was absorbed enough in the conversation not to notice his missing shadow. I looked at the shadow again, and wriggled my fingers, not knowing if I could hurt it or it me; but it clung harder, until half my hand was in shadow. I probed it with my magic, trying to sense what it was, if was sentient, and it took on the purple tone of my magic. I shoved down panic, I had hurt the shadow! It must have clung to me when he’d shaken my hand, and now I’d gone and hurt it! As if sensing my disquiet, it spread up to my wrist, and I swallowed hard. Not wanting to interrupt the conversation, I looked back to Azriel, and found him watching me. 

My heart kicked harder, like I was about to fight, and I swallowed again. My heart galloped harder. I met his gaze and raised my hand, the shadow clinging to it trailing down my arm in affectionate tendrils. It let me know of it’s affection through the magic I’d probed it with, and I spun my wrist, the shadow clinging to it swirled giddily around it, and I smiled. I looked back to Azriel, and said, “I think I made a friend.”

Cassian, turning at my voice, jumped hard when he saw my hand wreathed in shadow. 

“Shit!” he cursed, “Az, is that one of yours?” 

He said, ‘one of yours’ like Azriel made them, but as I stared into the swirling shadow on my hand, I knew he hadn’t made them, hadn’t produced them, they just liked him. The shadow sent me a pulse of what they thought of Azriel. It was they, I realized, as, fascinated by the smoky shadow, I filtered through dozens of shadow’s impressions and opinions. They had personalities and temperaments. They did not just like Azriel, they loved him. He was like them, he was them. My shadow, it seemed, as I twirled my wrist, had a happy nature. I smiled again, and it eddied into my palm. Azriel was in front of me. His nearness broke me out of my study of the shadow, as I scented him, and as his hand brushed mine to collect his missing shadow. The scents of mist and cedar and male wrapped around me, and my concentration narrowed to him. I met his eyes as his shadow reluctantly curled in his palm and remerged with the others. 

“Apologies.” Azriel rumbled, his voice deep, and clanging through me with more force than it should have.

“Don’t be!” said quickly.  
I was put off guard by his nearness, and it unsteadied me. I surveyed him, as Mor had said, he wore his flying leathers still, the leather clinging to him, siphons glittering deep blue from their places on his leathers. My survey reached his face, and I realized he’d been… surveying me too. He was beautiful, more graceful lines than Cassian’s ruggedness, and the wings that spread over his shoulders were truly massive, black shadows swirling around them. I met his eyes. Something predatory had entered them at my survey of his wings, and heat pooled in me, heating my cheeks and causing my own wings to spread a bit, preen under his gaze. I felt like I was moving through honey, his eyes tracked the bob of my throat. Heat spiked through me, and his eyes glazed. 

Cassian cleared his throat, loudly, obviously. And I startled so hard I shattered the wine glass in my hand. I realized that conversation had halted, and the room was staring at Azriel and I, and Azriel was still on the floor in front of me, on his knees, looking almost like I felt. Winded. Why couldn’t I suck in a breath? 

“Easy.” Cassian said beside me, reaching for the shards of glass on my lap. Lucky I had been nearly done with my glass, I thought to myself dizzily as Cassian’s hands entered my view to clean off the glass, and a feral, deep snarl rumbled out of Azriel. 

He gaped up at Cassian, clearly as shocked as Cassian was at his outburst. Cassian recovered first, and he cleared his throat again as Azriel willed all of the glass onto the coffee table. Cassian smoothly moved to make room for Azriel on the couch, and said, “Play nice with my Second.” before pointedly turning to Mor and resuming the conversation. Something about wine vineyards and spellwork. My attention slipped back to Azriel. 

I said, my head spinning, “I’m sorry if I hurt your shadow, I didn’t mean to. And I’m sorry about the wine glass too.” I added. 

The closer he got, the more I wanted to lean into him, the urge inexplicable but hard to resist.

“You didn’t hurt it.” he answered quietly, “It’s just very rare they like a person so quickly besides me.” 

I smiled as he released the shadows from where he kept them, and they twined around me. I resisted the urge to touch him by rearranging my wings, and the shadows slipped around them, smooth, cool puffs of smoke against the membranes of my wings. I gasped, the small sound escaping me despite my trying to clamp it down, at the shadows playing against my wings, up my neck. Was he doing it on purpose? I wondered, the thought of him swaying me towards him like he had his own gravity. What was he?  
I caught Mor’s shocked face over Cassian’s shoulder.

Azriel’s dark hazel eyes had glazed at my gasp, but he pulled his shadows back with his magic, muttering angrily to them, “That’s very rude.” and “I trained you better than this.” When they were all carefully collected, he said to me, “I didn’t know they would do that,” somewhat sheepishly, he added, “They said they wanted to meet you.”

I giggled then, the shadows were small and clever, with minds of their own no matter how Azriel trained them. “I like them, too.” I said, looking up at their owner.

A fae woman appeared in the doorway, letting us know the cooks had dinner ready for us, and I didn’t get to say more to Azriel as we all headed to the dining room.

The dining room was enormous and circular, the round table in the middle of the room charmed to fit the size of the dining party, and heaped with food. Windows made up half of the ceiling and wall, jutting into a massive garden, and allowing starlight to shine down on us as we ate. It was massive and luxurious, and I had never seen anything like this gorgeous place in Illyria, but as Cassian piled my plate high with wonderful food after wonderful food, and Nesta joined in too, stuffing me until I protested I wouldn’t be able to fly the next day, I did not feel out of place or unwelcome for even a moment.


	4. Revelations

I woke the next morning sprawled in my bed, buried in blankets and pillows while pre dawn light crept in through the window. Braiding back my hair and pulling on loose exercise clothes I’d found in my now assumed-to-be enchanted dresser, and wandered my way to the roof.   
I wasn’t the only one up for a dawn workout. Half the house was up and in workout clothes. Feyre and Cassian were warming up, while Rhys and Azriel were already sparring.   
I stretched my wings out wide, rotating the joints, stretching out flight muscles and tendons, before rolling down my shoulders, stretching out my legs, and began one of my favorite fighting dances, rolling through poses and strikes like water down a stream, gathering speed and momentum as I went. 

I heard a male yelp and Rhys chuckle, but I was wholly concentrated on the pattern dance, letting each movement slow, concentrating on precision now, I repeated it, not a single movement wasted, working in a wide circle around the roof, relishing the feeling of my sleepy muscles warming and waking. I ended it with the last movement, and straightened. 

The Illyrians were not sparring. They were watching me. Cassian grinned over to Azriel, and Rhys drawled, “You look like a proud mother hen, Cassian.”

He then looked to me, “Do you often wake up with one of the more complicated pattern dances I’ve seen?” Rhys asked, polite innocence on my High Lord’s face.

I felt my cheeks heat, and muttered, “That one’s just my favorite.”

Azriel snorted, and Feyre walked over to me. “Teach me that.” My High Lady asked, so I showed her each step, until we could walk through it slowly. She was sweating when we finished the last precise turn.

I tucked a strand of dark hair out of my face, cracked my back, and said, “Then I usually do it again with a staff of some sort.”

Feyre looked at me, panting slightly. I was barely starting to sweat, my morning routine barely begun.

“I see why Cassian braggs so much on you.” she replied before joining Amren on a lounging chair set by the large pitcher of water we could use as needed.

I smiled, and cast around for the weapons rack I knew had to be close. 

I found Azriel waiting for me, two long wood staves in his hands. His shadows curled around him as I walked over, like they remembered me. I remembered last night in the den room, the heat in his gaze, and I allowed some prowl into my gate. I could feel his eyes on me as I got closer. 

A half smirk crept onto my face, and I drawled, “‘Morning,” to him as I accepted a stave he offered. I inspected my weapon, feeling the lead core that lent it weight and strength, and spun it around my hand. 

“Would you like to start with one of the patterns?” I offered when my inspection was complete and he still hadn’t replied.

The shadowsinger smiled slightly, and said, “I’d rather see what you’ve got.” in a low voice that made my bones sing with the challenge in it. His wings rustled as if he felt it too.  
I stepped back, bracing my feet apart, and said, “Then bring it.” 

Azriel’s beautiful hazel eyes glowed, shadows writhing at his back, and he was on me in an instant, but I was ready. 

Wood cracked against wood as I parried his initial hit and spun my stave around in an attack of my own, but he was already gone, trailing shadows where he had stood moments before. I pivoted on instinct alone, catching his downward slice with my stave and twisting, bouncing his stave back with it’s own momentum. 

Rhys whistled from behind us, but I didn’t have time to even think about sneaking a look towards the others. Azriel was coming too fast to do anything but block and strike, each quick as lightning, shuddering down my stave into my palms. But I was holding my own. Parry. Block. Parry. Strike. 

I pulled out all the stops, using moves I had only practiced, never used in a duel, combining moves I had never even considered using together until my instincts sang that it was the only way to ward him off.

I didn’t notice when I started grinning. But the laugh that rushed out of me as I dodged one of the best swings I’d ever seen, whirling my stave up and around to catch him off guard escaped me before I could stop it.

He was amazing. I met him strike for strike, but I was still scrambling to keep up, never gaining the upper hand, but decidedly not losing. I laughed again as staves smashed together, and his answering grin made me feel like my feet were inches off the ground. Attack and counterattack, back and forth, a seamless dance. Sweat was sliding down my temples, down my back, and I finally made my mistake. 

He caught my foot with the end of his stave, sending me crashing to the roof on my hands and knees, my stave clattering to the tiles beside me, my wings askew from the impact. I was heaving for air, winded and sweating. I found my footing and faced him, he wasn’t breathing as heavily, but he was sweating just has hard, a wicked looking grin on his face that matched my own.  
I wiped my brow with the front of my shirt, resettling my wings at my back, and said, “Again but with daggers.”   
Azriel grinned, wings fanning, but Rhys called, “Can you pummel each other after breakfast?”

...

 

The lot of us trooped down the main stairway, in sweaty workout clothes, to the same dining room as the night before, and everyone plopped down and started shovelling breakfast foods onto plates and wolfing down eggs, bacon, and pastries. I ended up between Cassian and Azriel.

“Leave it to my Batling,” he was saying around a mouthful of eggs, “to finally be the newcomer to give Az a run for his money.” He clapped a hand to my freckled shoulder as my face burned pink.

Mor, who had apparently joined while Azriel and I had been sparring, slid a chocolate pastry onto my plate, and said, “It was amazing to watch.” with a wink before settling in her own chair.

I glanced over at Azriel. He was watching me again. I raised an eyebrow at him over my cup of tea, and he raised his in return, a smile curving his lips. He turned and reached for his fork, deep blue syphon glinting against his hand. Against… scar tissue. Rage slammed into me so hard and fast I stopped breathing mid inhale. I could only stare at his hands, their graceful bone structure contrasting with the tell tale whorls of burn marks covering both of them. The burns were so even… every inch covered, no gaps or lighter areas in the scarring. I knew they couldn't have come from an accident. I would kill whoever had done that to him. The thought crystalized as molten rage rushed through me, had my wings rustling and resettling at my back. I forced myself to loosen my grip on the teacup in my hand, determined not to shatter another cup in my High Lord’s home. I stuffed my rage down deep, snuffed it out like a candle’s flame, to be relit and examined later, when my commander wasn’t watching the carefully leashed tremor in my hands like he knew exactly what I felt.  
I glanced to Azriel, sure I was about to embarrass myself, but I didn’t have to worry, he and Rhys were deep in discussion when I finally got my jaw to relax, and my shoulders to relax, and the tendons connecting my wings to me to relax.

I took another sip of my tea, and felt a familiar cool touch against my hand. I looked down, where the shadow from the night before coiled against my left ring finger. I smiled down at it. I curled a tendril of my magic towards it, trying to send a greeting through only emotions. It curled tighter around my finger, like it was listening, and then politely sent one word, clear as a bell, to my mind.

Hello. 

I sloshed a bit of tea onto my other hand when I jumped. It could talk!

A flash of pride, with a slightly smug, I talk.

I grinned. Small phrases, with flashes of emotions made up it’s speaking patterns, then. It swirled around my finger like it agreed.

Why did you come to me? I thought at the little thing, opening a channel to it through my mental barriers.

A flash of the rage I had felt, reflected back to me, and it said, Angry for Azriel.

Yes. I thought back, after a moment’s consideration. 

Me too. It thought to me, coiling around my finger.

Asking the shadow what had happened to him felt like snooping, so I thought to it instead, You can stay there through breakfast, but then I need to bathe and you need to go back to Azriel.  
It said, Agreed. And that was that. I hardly noticed it as I ate plate after plate, keeping pace with even Feyre and Cassian. I love food, and between magic and fighting and flying, I am always hungry. 

Members of the inner circle dispersed as they finished their breakfasts, peeling off from the table to their separate quarters to attend to whatever their roles called for. Azriel rose when Rhys did, and they headed for the door together. I raised an eyebrow at the shadow on my finger, and gestured to Azriel. 

Don’t you need to go with him? I thought to it.

A flash of stubborness, You’re not done eating!

It occured to me that my hanger on might be young for a shadow. 

Fine then, I replied. But don’t blame me if you get in trouble.

It sent me an image of Mor sticking her tongue out, and I grinned, going back to my breakfast.

Eventually, Cassian and I were the last ones still eating, and as I polished off my second to last pastry, he told me where to meet him when I didn’t smell quite so bad. I slapped him with a wing on the way by, and he gave me a rude gesture on his way out the door.

I glanced around the dining room, and took in the beautiful garden I knew Elain had planted every vine, tree, and shrub in for a few more minutes before I rose and made my way back to my rooms to bathe and change, my shadow fading into others near the back of the door with a friendly goodbye and presumably, going back to Azriel.

 

… 

 

Less than an hour later I was bathed and dressed, my damp hair loose down my back to dry as it wanted. Still in sock feet, I went to go find Cassian.

A servant directed me to a large room filled with maps- his office here, and I let myself in. He looked up over reports and grunted his greeting, and I set about organizing the pile of paper closest to him into what I could do and what he had to do. I sent a ball of faelight hovering just over my shoulder for some better reading light, and quietly, we fell into a familiar cadence, the scratching of pens and rustling of paper and wings filled the study for some time. 

I had sorted through my stack, and started writing my thoughts in the margins of the ones he’d yet to get to when he said, eyes still on the report in front of him, “You did good with Az this morning.” 

I smiled. I had never felt so… exhilarated during a fight before. Training and sparring with Cassian was different, and training with others in the camp had held to the same monotonous patterns after a while. Sparring with Azriel had felt like dancing. Deadly dancing that made my heart and my mind race equally fast. Dancing and a puzzle. My grin widened. Dancing and a puzzle. I obviously needed to get out more.

Cassian was eyeing me, an eyebrow slowly drifting towards his hairline. 

I felt myself redden again, this time to the tips of my ears, and said carefully, “I’ve never had that much fun sparring with someone before.”

He snorted, turning his page, and said, “No one’s ever said that after a first go with him either. Although, I meant about his hands.”

Like a snap of fingers, the rage I’d felt earlier poured back through me, and my pen creaked dangerously in my grasp. I set it on the papers in front of me gingerly. 

My voice came out smaller than I had planned when, without meeting Cassian’s gaze, I said, “Please tell me those scars are from an accident.”

Cassian’s silence had me looking up into impossibly understanding hazel eyes, and he said quietly, “I can’t do that, my Batling.” 

I swallowed around the lump in my throat, overcome by the tenderness in Cassian’s words, and worn raw by my own rage and sorrow. Cassian gave me a rundown of what had been done to the shadow singer all those centuries ago, although he left out huge gaps I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking about.

Cool, crisp rage now clarified and sharpened. I wanted to rip those that had hurt them apart with my bare hands. My daggers would make it to clean for them. I was going to- 

“Vysrah.” Cassian said, snapping me out of my spiral. “It was centuries ago. Azriel healed, and he got out.”

“Are they dead?” The pure menace in my voice cut through whatever else Cassian was going to say. 

Another voice cut in from the doorway, “Yes, and we saw to it.” Rhysand had come. I realized my mental barriers had fallen in my rage, and that he could probably sense it from across the house. 

“Try across Velaris.” Rhysand drawled, slinking to the chair across from Cassian’s desk.

I scowled and snapped my mental barriers up, walls of faceted amethyst glittering into existence in my mind’s eye. 

I looked down at my hands, clenched around my knees, white knuckles showing through the scar flecked and freckled skin on the backs of my hands. I studied them rather than look at either male in the room with me. Tried to get my wings to untense, they were rigid behind me nearly to the point of tremoring.

I swallowed again. Had my people done that to him? 

I must have spoken it aloud, or I needed to make better shields, because Rhysand answered me. 

“It was not the Illyrians,” He said, his deep purple eyes boring into me, and I decided that I dreaded the pause and what came next more than knowing my people had not hurt him so brutally. “It was his half brothers.”

The growl that ripped from my throat rattled my pen on the desk, and Cassian blinked at me. Then again. Rhysand appeared to be talking to Feyre, he had that far away look that Cassian got when he and Nesta were interacting over the bond. 

His eyes refocused on my face, a smirk I was beginning to recognize as mischief on his face, as he said, “Interesting.” and then folded himself into a swirl of night and winnowed away.   
I looked at Cassian. When my head is scrambled, I always look to Cassian. 

He was studying my face like a map, scratching the stubble at his jaw like he does when he’s thinking. I looked down at at the desk, blindly grabbed a paper. My pen. I had begun to tally a supplies list for a company before Cassian spoke.

“I should tell you the rest.”

My head stilled mid equation, and I said in my soldier’s voice, the only one I could muster. “There’s more?” 

When he spoke again, he did not stop, and by the end, my hands were clenched around the arms of the chair, the full story- the entire thing. I couldn’t breathe. I watched Cassian’s shoulder’s rise and fall, carefully matching my breathing with his, willing air into lungs that had stopped drawing it. I locked eyes with him, and I knew he saw the roil my magic was in when his eyes widened imperceptibly. They had kept him imprisoned in the dark… against every one of the Illyrian instincts he had, and tortured him to boot. His family.  
I forced myself to say calmly, “I need to go fly for a while, Cassian.”

My magic was rushing purple smoke in my veins, I could feel it like a second bloodstream, so at odds with how calm I carefully kept my breathing.

“Vysrah,”

My eyes snapped to his.

“I’ve never seen his shadows visit anyone. Not once in six hundred years.”

I smiled at the memory of the little wisp, and my magic stopped it’s mad rush, ebbing to a more manageable level. 

“It said they like me.”

Cassian snorted. “I think he likes you.”

I was so tired of blushing today! It was barely noon. I was a soldier mage, not a school girl. 

“I haven’t given him any reason not to.” I said, carefully avoiding his implication.

“Not what I meant.” Cassian shot back, amusement in his eyes.

I glared at him, and stood up. “I’m going for a flight before lunch.”

“You already said that.”

I growled at him, and started pacing for the door.

Cassian sighed loudly and said, “Fine, go mull over your crush and leave me all this paperwork.”

My embarrassment and magical outrage reached new heights, and my wings shot straight out from my back. My voice was much higher than I wanted when I hissed, “I do not have a -a crush-”

“Weren’t you going somewhere?” he drawled, grinning like a cat. 

Before I slipped out the door I added, “And I finished what I could do of the paperwork, so there!” and shut the door behind me. 

 

...

 

I rushed back to my room, shutting out every thought but those that would put me into the air soonest. I pulled on warmer leggings, a sweater, and my flying jacket, shoved my feet into my boots before making for the door, my magic still too close under my skin for comfort, my wings standing half out from my back from embarrassment still. I stopped to rebraid my dark hair tightly, starting at the crown and plaiting close to my head and tucking the long braid into my jacket. A deep purple scarf, the color of my syphons, lay on the dresser, and I tucked it around my collar with a small smile. 

I took the steps two at a time, bursting onto the empty roof, and, not pausing to survey for others as I fixed my sight on the edge of the roof, extended my wings, and sprinted off the side of the mansion with a wild leap, the cold spring air wrapping around me. I circled the house once, gaining altitude, and then soared up, into the clouds, flapping hard until I burst through them, and evened out, surveying the tops of the clouds over Velaris, their rolling masses a soothing mirror to the purple smoke of my magic. 

Unbidden, Cassian’s voice echoed through me, “I think he likes you.” 

I remembered the heady rush of sparring with Azriel, the copper ring in his hazel eyes. The way his shadows felt on my wings. Frustrated, I swooped into the clouds, grey mists and cold winds blocking my vision, until I flapped through a world of wet and grey. I was here to Command! Not go moon eyed over Cassian’s adopted brother on day two!   
I was here to expand my magical abilities, to serve in the Inner Circle. I was not in Velaris to… well, to do whatever I wanted to do to Azriel.   
I rubbed the center of my chest absentmindedly. I doubted the shadow singer would ever return whatever it was I felt for him anyway. 

I resolved to stuff my attraction to him into a dark corner of my mind, and dove down, tucking my wings in tight, free falling from the clouds into the air over the river house and the Sidra.   
I waited until I could see different hues in the river before snapping my wings open and arching back into the sky, the howl of wind finally drowning out my rushing thoughts.


	5. Chapter 5

Azriel   
I had not been in such a complete tail spin since I walked in on Mor and Vivanne’s sister twenty five starfalls ago. The sense of vertigo and things suddenly clicking into place was the same. The subjects, completely different. 

The roof door banged open, and Vysrah, ready for flying, charged out onto the roof, wings already positioned to catch the currents, eyes fixed on the open air. She didn’t stop to stretch, or even look around before she threw herself off the edge of the roof so hard her dark braid flung itself from her collar and deep purple scarf in the flurry of movement. She beat hard, shooting straight up and aiming for the cloud cover without even circling to gain momentum. I watched her fly for the clouds, admiring the lines of her wings in the sky, as well as her graceful, powerful flightline. Straight up from a launch like that was no laughing matter without a century or two of flight experience. I rubbed the center of my chest absentmindedly.

Shadows, my oldest and closest, snaked through the tips of my hair around my left ear, and buzzed their amusement quietly. Quiet, you. I shot back at them. They simply traced my wings instead, mimicking the air currents of a cloudy day. I’m not joining her in the sky. I told them more stubbornly. Vysrah was off limits. Hell. She was practically Cassian’s daughter. That directly equated to hands, and shadows, off. The fact that I was drawn to her like a moth to a candle flame was not important. 

I couldn’t get her scent out of my nose, leather and sage. Wildness and warrior, wind and challenge. I couldn’t stop picturing my shadow dripping off her freckled hand, or her cat yellow eyes lighting with hunger when she’d looked at my wings.

I scrubbed my face with a palm, a gesture meant to clear my mind that didn’t work. I sighed, feeling like the worst kind of brother to Cassian. Hands off the protege. I hammered the thought into my head.

Learning the truth about Mor had been a relief in a sense, and after I had had exactly thirty seconds to reshuffle everything I felt for her, our relationship is closer, and less gut wrenching, than before. But, after Mor had come out, and I had finally let her go, I was still alone. Surrounded by my family, always, but surrounded also by people happily discovering mating bonds and falling in love. And I was… alone. The female I had loved for centuries preferred females, and had found one so perfect for her that it makes me teary eyed to see them when they’re both doting on each other. Both of my brothers are happily mated. Hell, even Amren has Varian.

My shadows curled further around me, darkening the periphery of my vision, snippets of their thoughts and emotion and knowledge flickering through my magical sense of them. I let the familiar pattern of the reports from shadows afield absorb my attention, and didn’t notice Amren until she flipped a book open loudly, after she had settled in her chair. I startled, my shadows jumping and retreating to my back at my spike of emotion. Amren is the only member of my family who can manage to sneak up on me. My shadows are neutral to her and refuse to tell me her comings and goings, which is infuriating.

“You pine the same as she does.” Amren said, that cat’s smile on her mouth she knows crawls under my skin.

I resisted the urge to growl at her, and instead just stood to go. When Amren wants to gloat, there’s no stopping her except removing yourself from the room, or, I thought to myself, roof.

In the flattest voice I could muster, I told her, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” 

“Then stop rubbing the center of your chest like your mating bond itches.” She shot back, hardly looking up from her book, black painted mouth twisted into a smirky smile. 

Every thought in my head lurched to a stop. Shadows dispersed from me in a rush, I forgot to inhale and exhale regularly. My hand froze on my chest, where I hadn’t noticed it was. 

“Don’t toy with me, Amren.” my voice was quiet, lethal.

“Me? Never.” she says, silver eyes gleaming.

I shot into the sky in one flap, patience gone, my ears ringing like someone had clapped their palms over them. As I gained altitude, I found myself reviewing what I knew of Amren’s powers, rather than sort through the implications of what she’d said to me. Amren’s powers had manifested in emotion. She could always tell what you were feeling, you could never lie to her; and if you weren’t strong enough, she could nudge, or shove if she was feeling mean, you to feel anything. More subtle than a daemati, I’ve seen her send whole regiments of soldiers to deaths of their own imaginations a thousand times worse than those dying on the battlefield, and I’ve seen her ease the suffering of the sick, dying, and injured. I’ve never once seen her be wrong about anything, when it comes to that power of hers, but, Vysrah, I barely even knew her, and I was not about to go trumpeting the M word like Lucien had and scare her off for a half century.

My thoughts were scattered by Vysrah plunging from the clouds a hundred feet from me, her arms out in front like she was diving into a pond, her wings angled like a hawk’s during a dive. She was one long line, spearing for the Sidra. I could see the wild grin on her freckled face at the rush even at this distance. My altitude faltered, and I had to devote more attention to staying aloft. I couldn't take my eyes from her. I realized my shadows had joined me in the sky when they twined around my shoulders like cats. Still, I didn’t look away from Vysrah’s dive. She plummeted perilously close to the Sidra, close enough to the shining ribbon of water to make me stop breathing, before unfurling her wings and soaring upwards in a long, graceful sweep, arching into the sky.   
I realized I had angled myself into her flight trajectory the exact moment she called, “Azriel! Hello!” I grimaced to myself, careful to keep it off my face as I waved her over. Hands off the protege indeed.

She soared over, gracefully falling into place beside me. I found myself smiling. She was grinning ear to ear, her dark braid was windswept, and her freckled cheeks red from the wind. She was so beautiful my breath caught. 

I was spared finding my voice when one of my smaller shadows appeared on her wing claw closest to me, trailing behind it like a small black puff of smoke.

“Hello to you too, little friend.” she was saying, “Yes you can fly with me.” 

Another shadow, this one a bit bigger, bloomed at her other wing claw, and she laughed, tucking into an easy roll in mid air before evening back out.

“I don’t know what I did to get your approval,” she mused to her new hanger on, “But you are welcome to fly with me too.”

Her wings trailing my shadows, a smile on her face, she looked over at me. The center of my chest warmed almost painfully.

“Would you like a flyover tour of Velaris?” I blurted, desperate for a reason to keep her in the air next to me. 

“I would love that.” she answered, and I thought I felt some echo of the same relief in the center of my chest. Just the shadows. Just my shadows. 

I gave her the longest, most detailed tour of Velaris I could, relishing every wingbeat in the air with her, her scent wrapping around me as my shadows clung to her wing claws. She stayed as close to me as she could, and I told myself it was to hear me better.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I've given up on chapter summaries guys let me know if you want them back <3

Vysrah  
As I listened to his deep, soothing voice lay the gorgeous city before me into even greater rendering, his shadows clung to my wings, cool circles around my wing claws, trailing behind me in a way I found mesmerizingly beautiful, floating nearly free on my upbeats, and trailing behind me like shadowy banners on down sweeps.   
As we neared the mansion, all I could think about was the coolness of those shadows against the slightly warmer air around them, and the timbre of his voice, and wonder how it would feel to brush my wing against his.

I fixed my gaze on the earth below us, and let the current drift me closer to him, his scent wrapping around me despite the fact that we were two hundred feet in the air. I felt drunk as I angled the tip of my wing under his, and I heard his voice falter as I gently brushed the underside of his wing. I felt like I was going to fall out of the sky. I could feel the velvet soft of the underside of his wing in spite of the wind, his shadows coiled tighter around my claws, and before I moved away, he slipped his wing up and under mine as we soared on a steady current, brushing his wing against the underside of mine in return. 

I bit my lip. Hard. And steadied myself in the sky before glancing over at him. His ears, nose, and cheeks were all blazing red, and his shadows were thicker and more numerous behind him, nearly obscuring his other wing from my view. His hazel eyes were dark as they met mine. A bolt of heat shot straight down my spine, and then we were landing, and my feet were touching the roof of the river house again.

My wings didn’t want to settle, and I had to bait twice before folding them carefully at my back. My two shadows stayed on my wings despite my flapping and reshuffling, and I looked up at him. Azriel was watching me carefully, so, not sure what to say, I brushed against the bigger shadow at my right wing, and it transferred itself to my hand amenably. I studied it for a moment with my magic, and held out the now slightly purple shadow to him, stepping close.

His big, scarred hand brushed mine, collecting the shadow, and I remembered that his wing had felt like cool water when it had brushed mine, and that brushing my wing like that wasn’t an accidental thing. He’d meant to. I felt the points of my ears burn with my blush. The shadow coiled around both of us for a moment, prolonging the contact, before slinking up Azriel’s arm with a smug air and rejoining the others. 

I watched it go, and couldn’t stop the questions that bubbled up, “How do they work? Are they your informants, or just how you communicate with them over a distance?”

They coiled closer around him, like they knew they were being spoken about, and I smiled. His answer confirmed my theory, they acted as informants, communication devices, and as an extension of his magic. And, because they held their own consciousness and free will, they made more intelligent listeners than the normal spell work spies employed. Fascinated, I drew my remaining shadow into my palm, and it eddied between my fingers affectionately. 

“Clever thing.” I muttered to it, bringing it closer to my face and examining its shadowy mass against the diffuse light of the clouds. I could nearly see through it.

It buzzed to me, I know. with a smug coil around itself. 

I giggled, and looked back up at Azriel. We had drifted closer together during my study of the shadow, I could rest my head against his collarbone in half a step.   
I forgot my shadow, and rubbed the center of my chest. His eyes met mine, dark green irises and copper ringed pupils traced down my scarved neck and flying jacket, to my hand, ringed in his shadow, rubbing a magical itch in my sternum. His brows snapped together and his eyes jumped back to mine. 

My cheeks grew almost painfully hot, and I opened my mouth to say something- but no words would even manifest in my mind, much less actually consent to be spoken. I just gaped up at him, his shadows and cedar scent and my searing memory of touching his wing clouding my mind.

The door banged open in a hauntingly similar way to how I had thrown it open earlier, and Cassian, dressed for flying and stretching his wings and shoulders emerged onto the roof. He took a few steps out of the doorway, and was pulling his right arm over his head in a long stretch when he noticed us. Standing very close together- nearly touching, really.

I leapt away from Azriel like a cat soaked with water, and wanted to turn into one of his shadows and melt into the floor. I should’ve stayed in the mountains. Velarians are clearly too much for me to handle. 

I pressed my hands to the tops of my pointed ears like a fourteen year old to hold in their redness, and found I didn’t have the courage for what a grinning Cassian was clearly about to start laughing. So, I turned and left, striding for the door without a word to either of them, my flaming face and ears and pride evident enough. They both let me go without comment, much to my relief, and I went immediately to my room to strip off my flying layers and try and convince my face to return to its normal color. 

Azriel  
“Don’t.” I say across the roof to Cassian, rubbing my temples, “Don’t even start.”

“Glad to see you two are getting… acquainted.” Cassian starts anyways, that lopsided grin all the evidence I need that he’s getting one hell of a giggle out of this.

“Cass, I met her yesterday. Do you honestly think-”

“No! I mean it.” Cassian interrupts, adjusting his tone, tucking his wings back a bit, “I watched you two sparring yesterday, and today, when I had to tell her about your hands-”

I wanted to leap off the roof and not catch myself. I slammed my palm to my forehead, “What in the seven layers of the Prison would compel you to do that!” I shout the last word at him   
louder than I needed to for the distance between us.

“Azriel! Listen to me you ass!” Cassian barks, striding to me. “I practically had to keep her from shredding Feyre’s drapes! She had to go flying because she was so pissed she couldn't tally numbers.”

“Great.” I deadpan, shamed despite my best efforts. “So now your Lieutenant pitties me-” 

“She doesn’t pity you, Az! But she does care about you! Will you let me finish?”

I cross my arms, wanting to be having almost any conversation other than this one.

“I’ve never heard her growl at anyone the way she growled at Rhysand-”

“She growled at Rhysand!” I interrupt. 

“Yes! Let me finish! The only reason he was there at all was because Vysrah was so mad she dropped her shields and Rhysand felt her anger from so far away he came to snoop!” Cassian said it all quickly, like I was going to interrupt him again.

I stood there, shadows churning agitatedly around me, Cassian looked at me expectantly.

“...Amren may have mentioned something to me.” I offered when he didn’t continue. 

“See?” Cassian says, like it makes all the sense in the world. 

“No!” I say, “I don’t ‘see’, Cassian! Vysrah’s like what, thirty? maybe? Compared to my almost seven hundred? And she’s fresh out of those wretched camps and you want me to do what?”

“Vysrah is eighty seven.” Cassian cuts in, his tone unexpectedly sharp. “She’s fought for and won her warrior’s syphons just like us. She is not some innocent apprentice of mine! She’s powerful and cunning just like everyone else in the Court, and she’s worth her weight in gold already to me as my Lieutenant and she’s barely had the job a month, but she needs friends- real allies, outside of me and Nes. And I know everyone here is happy to have her, but I think she might like you, so don’t you go pulling your ‘I’m not worthy’ horseshit to me or her when I’ve never seen your shadows interact with anyone other than you!”

Cassian folds his arms, and widens his stance, steadying himself, and I know that Cassian’s mind is made up, this is the proverbial hill he’s prepared to fight on. 

The memory of her wing brushing against mine in midair winds through my mind, and I clench my hand, and my jaw, to keep my hand from drifting to the center of my chest.

Cassian chuckles, and says, “You’ve got it bad, you stubborn bastard, just admit it so we can try and do something about it.”

I sigh, and say in my most reasonable voice, “Cassian, I really don’t want to discuss my irrational attraction to your Lieutenant.”

Cassian grins at me like I’ve just given him something worth Amren levels of money, and says, “It’s not irrational though, the way you two have been hitting it off I wouldn’t be surprised if you were-”

“Don’t finish that, Cassian.” I interrupt, abruptly closer to him, any feeling in my voice vanished.

“Admit that it could be possible.” Cassian says, to my face, like I'm not prepared to slap him.

“I have known her for less than three days!” I shoot back. “I won’t… I’m not going to throw myself at her just because it’s what my instincts are telling me to do.” I’m pacing again, resettling my wings, removing my damned hand from that magical itch in my chest.

“You’ve never been good at following instinct.” Cassian says. “If something draws you to her, listen to it!” 

“You know it’s not that simple.” I answer.

“Azriel, for once, let something be that simple. Get to know her, hell, listen to your own shadows.” 

Ever listening, my shadows tighten around me momentarily to convey their agreement with Cassian. 

I want to be out of this conversation. The more infuriating bit of information is that I want so badly to go downstairs and find Vysrah, to find any excuse to talk with her. Be near her.   
I pace around the roof a little harder, and Cassian watches, going through the motions of sunning his wings despite the cloud cover.

“Do you need me to tell you how to romance her too?” Cassian drawls with a grin, unable to help himself for long.

I growl across the roof at him, and he smiles a one sided smile at me in return, crossing his ankle over the other and leaning his hip back against the waist high banister like the perfect picture of idle conversation.

“I know full well how to romance a female, Cassian.” I bit out, taking the bait but glad for the slight shift in conversation away from the ‘m’ word.

“Right.” Cassian says, inspecting the cuticles on his sword hand.

“I just gave her a flying tour of Velaris!” I finally bellow at him, his infuriatingly wide grin only grows wider when I break and yell at him like we’re still fledgelings it the war camp.

Cassian, ever more infuriating now that he’s gotten what he wanted, says smoothly, “I hope you two had fun.” and unfurls his wings to take off for his flight. 

I want to tackle him instead, but I let him take off before I finally yell up at him, ‘It was delightful, you ass.”

He cackles, and shoots upwards, and I resist the urge to kick a wall.


	7. Chapter 7

Vysrah

 

It took me twenty minutes to return to my normal coloring and not feel like bashing my head into a wall. Cassian must be just delighted, that mother hen.

I slipped out of my room, changed out of flying clothes and into leggings and a loose shirt with most of the back missing to allow for my wings, and found my way to the kitchen, a huge, sunlit room packed with shelves and counters and enough supplies to feed a small army. I smile to myself when I realize that's what this house equates to. 

There are four kitchen staff bustling around, stirring pots and chopping vegetables, and I remember Cassian telling me this kitchen is also used to feed the refugees in Velaris, Elain’s own personal project, aside from the gardens. Elain is stationed at an island in the middle, wearing a short sleeved smock coated with flour and flour dusted leggings, kneading a massive ball of dough. I cross the kitchen, and Elain looks up from her ball of dough as I near.

“Good morning, Elain.” I say, and watch her work the dough for a few moments before she puffs out a quick, “Morning!” before diving back into the truly massive wad of bread dough.

“Would you like some help?” I ask, when I notice her red face.  
She gestures with an elbow to a sink, and says, “After you've washed your hands I’d love some.” and smacks a handful of flour onto a sticky portion of the dough.

Grinning, I scrub off my hands and join her at the island, dusting my hands with flour, and beginning to pull and knead the dough, copying Elain’s movements as closely as I could. The repetitive motions and tempo soothes the rest of my shredded shame, as well as leaves my arms burning from exertion.

Around thirty minutes later, six loaves of bread sit rising, and we sat on stools in the corner of the kitchen, nursing cups of tea Elain had brewed us; I had taken my hair out of it’s tight flying braid, leaving it to fall loose to the small of my back.

We were idly talking hair while I stuffed tea biscuits in my mouth, when, in the middle of her sentence, she stopped, got a faraway look in her eye, and said, “You’ll want to hold your teacup in your left hand, Vysrah.”

Chilled, I did as she said, when her eyes cleared, she blinked at me, and noticed my stunned expression. She grimaced, and turned red. 

“Did I just happen to say something completely strange and off topic?” she asked in a small voice.

Just as I was nodding, yes as a matter of fact you had done something like that, one of the cook staff tripped with a hot plate in her hands, and sprawled into me, sending the plate shattering to the floor, I caught the woman, and helped her upright, Elain and I both helped clean up the mess, which meant we got about a half batch of salvaged biscuits. It was only after the woman had bustled away that I realized had I been holding my cup in my right hand, I would’ve spilled my hot tea on her when she tripped into me. 

Once again, I gave Elain a startled look. She had a frustrated look on her face, and she was idly braiding loose strands of her hair.

“A vision?” I said, curiosity and questions already swirling.

Elain grimaced. “That would imply looking. It’s more like the future overrides my magic every now and then. And it doesn’t even tell me useful things! Why didn’t it tell me to stop the woman from tripping?” She sighed, and took a sip of her tea, as if to cut herself off.

I had plenty of experience having no clue what my own magic was doing. I smiled at Elain over my tea cup, and said, “It looks to me like you stopped someone from getting hurt.” I eyed the ground the woman had tripped from my stool. “There was nothing over there to trip on, so it was likely a misstep, maybe there was no preventing the fall, but your magic showed you how to prevent harm?” I speculated. 

It was Elain’s turn to look astounded at me, and she blinked several times, like she was processing my words.

“That… that makes a lot of sense.” she said. She sat still for a moment, then grasped my hand not gripping the teacup. “Thank you.” she said earnestly. “I hadn’t thought of it like that before.”

I smiled over at her, and gripped her hand in return. “My magic took me decades to figure out.” I confided to her. “I know where you’re coming from.” 

I realised she was still holding onto my hand the same time I realized her eyes had that same peering-into-nothing-but-something look. I let her rummage through whatever her magic gave her, and when she sat back, I slipped her tea into shaky hands.

“Never had two in one day before…” she was saying quietly, and I rubbed her shoulder soothingly. I got the sense that the future sending her cryptic riddles took a lot out of her.

“What was it this time?” I asked, half serious.  
She looked over at me, grimmer than before, and said, “Sometimes… it is best I keep what I… recieve, to myself until it’s meaning clears up a bit.”

I nodded, further chilled, and said, “That makes sense.” although I burned with curiosity.  
She smiled a small, relieved smile, and we sat quietly for a moment. I got the sense Elain was processing what she’d been shown.

The kitchen doors opened, and Lucien strode into the kitchen, mismatched eyes searching the huge room for his mate. When he found her, he noticed me at her side and relaxed a bit, but still made it across the kitchen at just less than a jog. 

Elain’s entire being lit up when she saw him, and she beamed up at him even as he curled an arm around her side, and said in a low, concerned voice, “Two in one day?”

She leaned against his broad chest as she sat on the tall stool, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, and said into his collar, “S’okay, just tired me out for a second.” She cracked a huge yawn in emphasis and curled further into him like a sleepy kitten.

I smiled as my throat tightened a bit, and tried not to look away like the lovely portrait the two of them made hurt my eyes. I stared down into the dregs of my teacup and tried not to think about that particular complete absence in my life. No one in the Illyrian camps wanted much to do with a bastard, much less a woman with strong magical abilities as well as the capacity to best them in the sparring ring. To be fair, I hadn’t wanted much to do with any of them either, but still, just a few decades short of a century old and I’d never even kissed anyone. Never flown with anyone unless it was training or with Cassian.  
Except- today I had. The memory of Azriel’s red ears and face flashed through my mind, shadows on my wing claws, his voice on the currents… Idly, I rubbed the strange magic that had taken hold in the center of my chest, and glanced up at Lucien.

He tucked Elain’s head under his chin, and I got the sense he was evaluating me with his golden eye. Elain’s hand brushed his cheek, and his eyes darted to her as if she’d told him something surprising.

Mates. I groused to myself. Why even develop the ability to speak at all if everyone was going to communicate via mating bond. Strange warmth spread from the center of my chest, like a gulp of whiskey, and I took the time to really examine it with the magic I had that I was familiar with.

Whatever had manifested was like none of my other magic. My magic was deep purple storm clouds, rolling and churning, a second, magical echo of my bloodstream. This new magic was light. Pure, sonorous light, bubbly like faerie wine and strong as Illyrian steel. It wasn’t someone else’s spell… it was me, that I was sure of, but why? What was it? I poked it with a tendril of my power, it didn’t have much of an effect, more of a hollow echo. 

Familiar coolness on my wrist pulled me out of my half meditation. The small shadow that had visited me before projected a happy greeting at me, and said in it’s small voice, you called?  
No I didn’t. I thought at it. But I’m glad to see you anyway.

It twined around my wrist affectionately.

Do you have a name? I asked it. If it was going to be a regular visitor I needed a way to tell it apart from the others.

Byrr. It thought to me.

I grinned. The old Illyrian word for smoke? Azriel had named one of his shadows Smokey? 

It is a good name! Byrr protested, and I giggled out loud, gaining a strange look from Elain and Lucien until I held up my shadow wreathed hand. 

“I wasn’t aware they had senses of humor.” Lucien mused.

“This one’s name is Smokey.” I said, and Byrr spun around my hand and projected offense at me, making it a struggle to hold in my laughter.

I got myself some more tea and found my thoughts drifting again towards my magic. I looked again into myself and at the strange new magic. I prodded it twice more, again to not much effect. 

Lucien had pulled up a stool, and Elain was brewing more tea at a nearby stove.

She pulled down another teacup, like she was expecting another person, and less than a minute later, Azriel appeared, wandering into the kitchen. He looked a bit rumpled, his hair was mussed like he’d been running frustrated hands through it. I tried not to sit up straighter. I tried not to stare as he walked over to our quiet little party. I failed.

Elain took a look at him, and added a pinch more of something to the teapot. Closing the lid, she brought him his teacup and sat him down next to me, then went to go find more snacks, Lucien followed to carry things. I saw why Cassian loved her like a little sister, Elain had such natural kindness in her it was hard not to love her a bit.

I prodded my new magic one more time, a silent promise I’d examine it more thoroughly later, and Azriel’s knee struck the underside of the counter we sat at like something had shocked him. I didn’t get time to examine that little coincidence, because Elain and Lucien returned, and Elain had a whole peach pie in her hands. Lucien couldn’t hand me a plate and fork fast enough.

I looked up three slices later, and Byrr said to me from my wrist, I’m glad I didn’t choose your fork hand. 

Magic and flying and fighting will do that. I shot back.

I think you just like sweets. Byrr said smugly.

Maybe so, Smokey. I quipped, and Byrr visibly bristled at me on my wrist. I looked up to Az smothering a laugh next to me. Then he was smiling at me. Every thought in my head slammed to a full and complete stop. It wasn’t Cassian’s grin, wide and open, it was smaller, quieter, one corner tugged up more than the other. He had one dimple- on the right side. I felt like I was standing in a patch of sunlight.

He was saying, “He’s letting me listen in, it’s not automatic, you don’t need to worry about me hearing your thoughts.”

“It’d only be my conversations with Byrr, anyway, wouldn’t it?” I asked, immediately thinking back to the techniques he’d told me about when he’d explained the basis of how the shadows worked. 

He blinked at me for a second, and nodded. “You have a good memory.” 

It was my turn to smile. “You’re interesting. I listen when you speak.”

He turned bright red in an instant, and his wings stiffened and straightened a bit as well. The small movements stood out- it was considered a bad habit in Illyria to let your wings communicate your emotions. I had never managed to make myself stop, my wings were too mobile, moving and reshuffling and shifting with me as I gestured and thought and spoke. I felt a bit more at home when I realized all the members of Rhysand’s court with wings didn’t seem to even think about holding their wings still.

Azriel’s wings were large even for his height, and he honed his talons to fine points. I studied the intricate pattern scars and winding blood vessels made in the wing I could see, and wished I could study them fully extended. I wished I could touch them. The thought made my own wings tighten a bit against my back. 

I realized I was staring at his wings, and he was staring at me staring at his wings. I felt my face heat for the billionth time that day, but instead of ducking my head, I met his gaze, wondering what I would find there. 

 

Azriel 

I hadn’t had an Illyrian woman study my wings like this in centuries. Vysrah’s gaze was intense as she slowly, methodically roved over my wing, and I resisted the urge to unfurl my it so she could study the whole thing. I wanted to stretch like a cat in the sun if she was watching. 

I could feel Byrr’s amusement from her wrist as she noticed me watching her. At a complete loss for what to do, I met her eyes. They were the color of sunlight through honey, and I wished I could study them closer. The strange magic in my chest was roaring at me through my bloodstream under her gaze, dizzying and heady, and I felt like a piece of metal pulled towards a lodestone.

Elain was gathering dishes to take to the wash sink, and when she slid Vysrah’s empty plate away, she startled, broken out of her reverie. Her wings flared out a bit when she jumped, and when she turned to Elain, I missed the feeling of her eyes on me.

Elain said something to her that made her chuckle, and then she and Lucien were gone, and Vysrah and I were alone. I watched her, and could practically see her mulling over questions forming, but I had no idea what for. 

“Where do you go during the day? Do you have a study like Cassian?” she asked after a moment.

“I’m with Rhys for most of the day while he does his administrating,” I answered, “it’s easy for me to advise as well as come and go with my shadows, and it makes for quick reporting. I do have a study like Cassian, but it’s at the House of Wind and I hardly ever go there unless I need someplace ‘official’ to speak to informants.”

Actually, I was about fifteen minutes late for a meeting with Rhysand, but I couldn’t seem to make myself leave. I wanted to ask her flying again.

Before I could open my mouth, she said, “I’ve never had so much fun sparring with anyone, before this morning. Want to do it again when we all train again?”

I grinned at her, the memory of her wicked focus and skill sending a thrill through me. “I won’t go easy on you just because my shadows like you.” 

“Good.” her answering grin was all Cassian, “I’d win too often, then.”

“We’ll see.” I replied, already thinking of elaborate sword patterns I was sure she hadn’t seen before.


	8. Chapter 8

Vysrah

A month passed. And then two. I fell into a happy routine as Cassian’s Second, accompanying him on all his official General business, learning how politics played into commanding armies. I felt like I couldn’t absorb enough. Sure, I could keep our armies fed, logistics and tactics were easy, but would I ever be able to politic our dues from the Court of Nightmares? Or mediate pointless fights between crabby Illyrian commanders with puffed up senses of honor patiently? Probably not on that last one. By resolution was usually to bash their two heads together and hope I knocked some sense into them.

The rest of my time was my own, and I spent it reading and wandering Velaris and letting Feyre try and teach me how to paint in her studio. I spent the most of my free time flying. Flying over the ocean and the city were so different from the mountains, I couldn’t get enough of the warm currents and endless breeze.

My favorite part of flying in Velaris, however, was Azriel. Over the weeks, we too had developed a routine of sorts. We found a way to meet each other in the skies almost every day, even if it was just for a few laps around the house. Wingbeats and shadows and quiet company. Most of the time. Sometimes he was even more of a showoff than Cassian. But flying with him, amazing as it was to fly with someone just for the fun of it, came in second to how much I loved what else we did almost every morning.

Every day, just after sunrise, the Inner Circle met to wake up together and work out a bit before breakfast. Azriel and I met each morning to beat the living hell out of each other. There wasn’t any mentoring, no advise, it would just be repeating what Cassian had been telling me for thirty years. It was me and whatever magically blunted weapon he tossed at me versus him. I hadn’t beaten him yet, his experience and sheer muscle had me so far, but I made him sweat for his wins, and he had bruises to match mine. Cassian and Rhys treated it like a spectator sport. It was my favorite part of the day.

...

“What will it be today?” I drawled to Azriel, letting my wings fan out a bit in the early morning sunlight. I could feel the warm day ahead already, the sun on my wings and cool morning breeze against a cloudless blue sky made me feel awake, crackling with energy. A grin crept over my face, and I rolled my shoulders, glad to have warmed up in my room so we wouldn’t need to waste any time.

Azriel watched every move I made, his arms crossed over his chest and leaning against the weapons rack like he’d been waiting for me, a ghost of a smile on his face. Byrr appeared on my wing, and thought to me, I’ll hold on tight.

“Sword.” he said quietly, and tossed my own sword, blunted by spell, at me hilt first.

I caught it, feeling the familiar weight and balance, the slightly longer blade than non winged fae swords, and swung it around my right hand a few times. Rage Whisper, the blade I’d trained with for so long it felt like an extension of myself.

“You’re in for it this morning,” I said to him, and threw myself at him.

He was ready for the hit, but I was expecting that. I couldn’t hit him hard enough to knock him off balance head on, so I had to hit where it count. Using the momentum from my first stroke, I cut at his ribs, and he caught it on his blade, defense quick as lightning. I was grinning before the third hit, and then we were trading sword blows in earnest, we matched in speed, which was intense mixed with the strength behind his blows, I felt his hits all the way up my arms.

I ducked under his left arm and wing, and swiped, but he was already gone, lunging in from my right. I was out of the way, kicking off the wall and flapping my wings once, flipping over him and forcing him to whirl to block. He yielded a step, then another, until the wall behind him brushed his wings. I pressed my gain, and rained down sword blows. 

He lunged to the side, unpinning himself from the wall but lunging into the path of my already swinging sword. Parrying my blade and shoving back hard enough to get me to give a few steps, he wiped his hair out of his eyes, and, wings fanning so big I thought they might block out the sun, he was coming for me. 

I took up a defensive crouch. Let him think I was foolish enough to lock swords with him and go muscle on muscle. He barreled towards me, astonishingly fast and gaining force with every step. I let him come, until I was just shy of sword reach, and jerked to the right. He whooshed by, powerful swing wasted, and I stuck my boot out to trip him on the way by. Cat-like, he twisted and caught himself, but he still turned and growled at me, all elongated canines and dark hazel eyes. I stuck my tongue out at him in answer, no time to think about that lovely picture, and swung for his head. His dark laugh reached my ears alone, and I shut down every thought except for where to hit next before the heat could crawl up my spine and distract me.

…

Cassian and Rhys kept an eye on the pair while they themselves exercised at a less crazed pace for the ass crack of dawn.  
Rhysand chuckled as she tripped Azriel and nearly sprawled him on the roof. She stuck her tongue out at him in answer to his snarl, and Rhys said to Cassian, “Why don’t they just go to dinner like rational people?”

Cassian chuckled and said, “Leave it to Vysrah to flirt with a male by trying to break his nose.”

The clash of steel echoed across the roof as she dove for his knees, and he hopped over her, the two of them still managing to trade a vicious flurry of sword blows despite the acrobatics. He noted the wild grin on Az’s face. 

“He seems to be picking it up, nevertheless.” Rhys said, watching Az’s shadows swirl around the pair while they fought their battle of skill and attrition.

“Matchmaker.” Cassian shot at him with a lopsided grin.

“Motherhen.” Rhysand countered, a bored tone to his voice, and turned his attention back to Vysrah and Azriel.

And then something happened Rhysand hadn’t seen in centuries. Azriel’s sword flew out of his hand.

...

The moment cleared before me, surety settling through my bones as I watched his sword thrust towards me. Lightning quick, I moved. In movements I’d practiced a thousand times, my sword slithered down the length of his, quick as a snake, I twisted, locking the crossguards and popping Az’s sword out of his hand in a neat second. It clattered to the roof, loud against the sudden silence of the others.

His dark hazel eyes met mine. Neither of us had really moved, chests heaving from exertion, barely a sword length apart. I hadn’t stopped grinning, I realized with a jolt that neither had he. Most males would at least have scowled a bit at losing, but Azriel looked like I felt. Flushed with energy and exhilaration, I felt like I could float over to him if I wanted. 

“Damn girl!” Morrigan called to me, breaking the silence.

“There’s the Wildcat!” Cassian called to me, pulling my gaze from Azriel. 

I stuck my tongue out at Cassian, and he gave me a vulgar gesture from across the roof. I snickered and turned back to Azriel.

“Again?” I asked with a lifted brow.

His chuckle slid down my spine like a caress, and my wings flared a bit at the sound. “At least let me have a water break before you beat the hell out of me again.” he said, that single dimple and lopsided smile catching my gaze even as I willed my eyes elsewhere.

I swept a hand and wing towards the water table, and said, “After you, then.” in a sickly sweet voice.

He laughed quietly, the sound warming the center of my chest. I smiled up at him, and one of his shadows grazed my cheek on it’s way by.

I was still smiling when he handed me my water cup, and when he dumped me on my ass two times before Mor, Feyre and Cassian began howling for breakfast. 

My good mood followed me all the way up until Cassian sighed after lunch over a letter he was reading.   
I looked up from my desk by the window, my attention it’s own question, and he brushed his long hair back from his forehead. “The Court of Nightmares is demanding an introduction to you.” in a voice like someone had left something slimy in his bedroll.

“So then I go shake hands.” I said, failing to understand his hesitation. I knew they weren’t good faeries, Morrigan’s story alone made me want to turn the place to rubble, but I dealt with the Illyrian camp leaders well enough, and I hated them every bit as much for what they had done and allowed to happen to females of my kind for centuries- millennia. So it probably wasn’t my own temper he was worried about.

“They want an official court introduction, which, on top of being a massive pain in the ass, means everyone will have to go and play nice, while they say horrible things and smile, which is going to piss Mor and Az the hell off. It’s a debacle like when Feyre was introduced waiting to happen.”

“Morrigan I can understand,” I said, “but what about that would make Az madder than anyone else?” I asked. “More than you?” He had known me for decades longer.

“You and me?” Cassian said, “We’re alike, Batling. We can brush it off if it’s about us, it’s what we’ve dealt with forever.” I nodded at him, Illyrian bastards got thick skin quickly. But Az was a bastard too. Before I could point that out, he continued, “Az has dealt with them for centuries, he’s been balancing a knife’s edge of wrath about Mor for longer than you’ve been alive, but he knows that’s Mor’s battle. If those bastards said one thing to you he didn’t like, it wouldn’t be like Rhys and Keir.” Cassian said. “Azriel would just snap their neck.”

A thrill sparked through my magic at his words, and I shoved it down, hard. Very not the time. I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry.

“I’d hoped to just take you and introduce you to the Darkbringer generals, and leave the posturing for Rhys and Feyre,” he continued. 

“But why?” I asked. Curiosity, and some other urgency pressing me to interrupt Cassian. “Why would he do that?”

Cassian looked at me, and I held myself locked in place so as not to duck his assessing stare. 

“You’re ours.” Cassian said. “They’ve got no goddamn reason to say a thing to you. And Azriel is going to be aware of that the whole time he’s under that mountain.”

I was silent. I could fight my own battles, but having so many people in my life suddenly ready to fight them beside me? I blinked a few times. 

“Why did you growl at Rhysand when he told you about his hands?” Cassian asked me, frank and honest. 

I reddened at the memory, at the wild anger and gut level instinct. But I answered honestly, “I cannot stand the thought of someone hurting him.” 

Even as I said it, old rage for old scars plunked through me and roused my magic. Cassian blinked at the intensity in my voice, and then smirked at me from his desk littered with paper. I stared back over my neatly organized one. 

“I’d imagine it’s something like that.” Cassian said, and went back to his letter. 

I did my best to go back to my work, but my thoughts kept drifting to the warming thought that I had people surrounding me. People who cared, and would fight for me, even when I could do it myself.


	9. Chapter 9

*Vysrah

A few days after the Court of Nightmares letter, Cassian and the others still hadn’t settled on a date for the meeting, although it was in all likelihood going to be the next Court session, during the new moon. I dabbed a swirl of paint onto the canvas in front of me, seated on a stool and angled so the mid morning sun from the large windows of Feyre’s painting studio warmed my wings, draped haphazardly down my back and resting on the floor so I could hunch over my work. 

I didn’t like painting still lifes or scenes or portraits. Whenever I got near a canvass, I ended up covering it in swirls and coats of color, not really any one subject, but the feelings and impressions I got from memories and emotions. Feyre loved them, I was glad for an outlet I didn’t have to strive to be the best at, something I could do just because it spoke to me.

Swirling colors together on my palate, I was so concentrated I didn’t notice the six year old with a fist full of blue paint until his little hand slapped into my wing as he ran by, leaving a two foot long smear, and startling me so badly the child and I screamed at the same time, the jerk of shock sending me toppling off my stool, his hand leaving an even longer smear down the middle of one area between two wing bones, and sending my palate full of paint splattering onto the floor with the rest of me.

I groaned and opened my eyes, glad the studio wasn’t full of a class, just a few parents and children. The culprit to my fall loomed over me, and smiled, revealing a mouthful of blue teeth. 

“Getting a taste for the craft, I see.” I said to the young one, who giggled and put his blue thumb in his mouth. I hoped the paint wasn’t toxic.

I groaned and sat up, and then Feyre was there. With Azriel. I fought the urge to lay back down and pass out from embarrassment.

Feyre giggled a bit at the state of us, and got me and my palate picked up, sending the spilled paint to a sink with a brush of power, and then set off to reunite the child with his mother. She left Azriel with a warm, damp towel, and the child left him with a blue claw when Feyre walked past with him. And Feyre and Rhysand honestly wanted one.

We ducked into the back room, stacked with supplies, to wipe the paint off. The door creaked a bit when it swung nearly shut, and it was dim compared to the sunlit studio. My heartbeat quickened, and then a spike of nerves shot through me when I realized there was no way I could reach all of the paint streak the boy had left on the outside of my wing without a brush. Which was why Az was holding the towel. 

My heart was pounding so hard I was sure he could hear it, but I looked into his face, unable to resist trying to see something of what he was thinking. He looked- more nervous than I was. Almost nauseous, really.

I swallowed, not sure if my voice would work, “You, um, don’t have to help if you wouldn’t be comfortable with that.” I said it softly into the gloom, giving him space. 

So intimate, touching someone’s wings was so intimate, an act of deep trust, only very close friends or romantic partners ever touched each other’s wings in Illyria. By the way Azriel looked, the same applied here too.

Azriel smiled at me a bit, every line of him tense, and said, “I was going to say something similar to you.” His voice was low, and rough, nearly gravely.

“Well, I don’t mind if you don’t mind.” I shot back, my voice low, but still teasing. Anything to get the anxiety off him. His eyes shone, just a bit predatory as the lines of his face relaxed a bit, and he took a step towards me. I realized I wanted him to touch my wings, so badly it burned, as he loomed closer and I slowly unfolded my blue streaked wing and turned my back to him.

My hair was in a loose bun, but I brushed it’s loose strands off my neck anyway as I felt his gaze on my wings- on my back, revealed by the sleeveless and nearly backless tunic I wore, the Velaris fashion cool for the summer heat as well as convenient for those of us with wings. I bit back the urge to squirm, even with my back turned, I could feel his hot gaze on me, and I loved the feeling it left me with. Giddy, sparkling magic surged through me. 

I wondered what he thought of the tattoo twining over my shoulders and upper back, warmth lit in my veins as he shifted closer and his scent hit me. Nervousness had been replaced by something… molten. I stood stock still as the warm, damp cloth rasped against the paint smear, his broad hand gentle as he steadied the bottom of my wing. I swayed, just a bit. Nothing could have prepared me for the white hot feeling that erupted from the magic at the center of my chest at his touch. Or the sensation of hands that weren’t my own on my wings. I grasped the edge of the counter, and tried to keep my breathing steady. 

He worked gently, rubbing the paint off with little circles of the towel that made my toes curl in my shoes. The friction. I was going to explode. I gripped the counter with both hands, and couldn’t get my wing to untense. Were this anyone but Az… I didn’t think I could handle it. This was crazy. What had Feyre been thinking?

“Easy.” Azriel murmured, his tone soft, like he didn’t want to startle me further. I wasn’t startled, like some deer- I was… this was… 

In my High Lady’s paint closet, her spymaster was cleaning my wings, and I wanted him so badly my knees felt like mush. This day had taken an unexpected turn so rapidly my head spun.  
The scents of paints and cedar and arousal battled in my nose. My next exhale came out like a pant, and he moved on to the next streak. This one was much worse. A large, hazy part of me told me it was better, and I couldn’t quite get it to quiet as his large hand pressed to the inside of my wing so he could get the paint in between the flight bones. His hand was warm, and I closed my eyes, allowing myself to marvel, just a bit, at the sensations. 

He dragged his hand slowly, so slowly, down the inside of my wing, matching the steady pace he removed the paint on the outside. I fought to relax my wing, and his thumb moved against the edge of a bone in a brush meant to reassure; it only set me furthur ablaze. Inch by inch, I worked the tension out of my wing as he slowly worked his way down it. He worked quickly, despite the fact it felt like a small, luscious eternity, and too soon, he was wiping off the bottom edge, and I wasn’t ready for his hands to not be on my wings anymore. He, it seemed, wasn’t ready to be finished either, because his hand stilled on my wing, holding the membrane between two flight bones. His thumb circled idly, and I bit my lip.

I glanced back at Azriel, his eyes were molten hazel, his breath quicker than normal as well. I listened to that hazy, bold part of me and slowly, so he wouldn’t take his hand away, I angled my wing a bit flatter, unfurling it and extending it- an offer and invitation. My breath caught in my throat as his palm slowly flattened against the outside, and swept languidly upwards. Up to my claw at the apex and down, slowly tracing the ridge of muscle and bone down towards my shoulder. Careful, light, sweeping touches, cautiously exploring. I arched a bit into the touch even as I longed to do the same to him, his massive wings were framed in shadow, tense even as his hands were steady and light from where they kept up their delicate roving, each hand mirroring the other’s movement.

Every tense muscle I had slowly loosened as his hands circled up and out over the span of my wings- tracing each bone, each change in texture. I wanted to know what his wings would feel like- what he would look like with my hands on them, if his shadows would trail my palm like they did my wings in the air. My thundering heart beat out a steady temptation to me.

Find out.

Find out.

Find out.

His hands on my wings, my back still facing him, I blurted, “Can I clean off your wing?” into the small room. He could easily reach it to clean off himself, but would he let me do it?

I felt my ears redden, embarrassment crackled through me as his hands went still, and I braced myself for the polite dismissal that would wreck me.

It didn’t come, just a beat of silence, and then his rumbled, “Sure.”

I turned around slowly, still somewhat expecting him to step away, make excuses and leave as quickly as possible. No one had taken pains to avoid me since I’d moved to Velaris, but a lifetime of stigma in Illyria was hard to completely put aside in a few sunny months.

I swallowed, and met his gaze. Burning hazel- the intensity nearly palpable in the air between us; those powerful eyes flicked down to my mouth, and stayed there like he had trouble making himself look elsewhere. 

My mouth curved up just a bit at one side, and he watched my smile with a predator’s focus as my hand closed around the towel. His wing angled down towards me, paint smeared claw wreathed in shadow like they were trying to disguise it. My smile widened.

“You really don’t fear them?” Azriel asked, so quietly I had a feeling he hadn’t meant to say it aloud. 

I looked at the shadows, magical wisps of smoke more valuable than gold, yet feared for their rarity and spying and strange abilities, and looked up at Azriel.

“They’re cute, why would I be afraid of them?”

His chuckle made my smile even bigger, and his hand brushed down my wing affectionately when I reached for his. He must have seen something on my face, because he stepped back- just a little, and said, “You’ll tell me if something I do makes you uncomfortable?” his eyes searched my face, and the worry in his voice warmed me.

“You haven’t done anything that made me uncomfortable.” I reassured him, “I just have no experience- with anyone touching my wings.” I tried to toss out that sad little fact like it didn’t strike something deep in me, and reached for his wing, just happening to step back in close to start cleaning, the dry paint proving to be a bit more stubborn than I’d anticipated. I glanced up at his face, and was surprised enough to find it angry that my steady swipes faltered.

A muscle in his jaw flickered, and he said, “I hate those camps.” with the same rage- the same rage that I felt, and had felt there, shut out of shops and bath houses and shunned in the streets and throughout the little every day interactions with the people that had surrounded me. And despised me. 

I rubbed a fleck of paint off, and said, “Me too.” Small words for a heavy, heavy burden.

I looked back at his wing, now mostly blue free, and shoved memories away. He stroked the insides of my wings in circles and patterns that slowly soothed the raggedness in me.  
A few moments passed where I silently cleared off the last of his wing, and set to work on the claw, it’s carefully honed point scraping gently against my palm. He continued his gentle exploration of my wings, the insides so much more sensitive, cool shadows trailing his warm hands. I stretched so he could reach more, biting down on my lip and cleaning as slowly as possible, savoring the strange moment of bliss I’d fallen into.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Azriel breathed, barely above a whisper, “and not there.”

I was suddenly aware of every inch between us, and shadows seemed to condense around us, swirling from the air. I couldn’t make myself look away from him to admire them. 

My throat bobbed with my swallow, and his eyes followed the motion as I answered, “Me too.” again.

His wing was free of paint, but I didn’t drop my hand away, instead I flattened my palm against the long arch of bone leading to the elbow of his wing and his claw, and slowly brushed my hand down, feeling it’s downy softness as well as the honed flight muscles underneath. His hand mirrored my motion on my own wing, and his smile mirrored my own.

I thought he might kiss me, my breath hitched as his gaze lowered again to my lips. I thought I might kiss him, despite that I knew only facts, and not motions or sensations of kissing. 

Before I could lean in and up to see if he’d show me, he murmured, “Let me take you to dinner.” into the air between us. 

I met his eyes, and he brushed a strand of hair that had loosened from my bun behind my ear. “A date,” he clarified, “just you and me and a nice restaurant on the Sidra.”

A smile crept over my face, and shadows curled at his ears. 

“I’d like that.” I answered, my magic fizzing through me, the heat of his palm lingering near my jaw. 

His eyes lit, and his wings flared out just a bit; I huffed a laugh, and ran my hand affectionately down the plane of his wing.

“Meet me at the river house at eight?” he asked.

“Where in the river house?” I countered. “It’s absolutely massive.” 

“The foyer. So everyone can come gossip.” he said, his hazel eyes dancing. 

“I’d hate to deprive them of news of my hot date.” I replied, smirking up at him.

To my complete surprise, Azriel turned a wonderful shade of red, and couldn’t seem to come up with a retort. 

Outside, the noise of children grew louder, along with the murmur of parents. The next painting class was in. 

“I’m volunteering during this next class,” I said, already missing his hands on my wings, “I should probably go help set up.”

“Do you teach?” Azriel asked as we headed out into the now bustling main studio.

I waved a hand, “Gods no, I’m still learning. I mostly just help the little ones with paint and easy stuff. I leave the explaining up to Feyre.”

Azriel smiled, but whatever he was going to say was cut off by an excited shriek of, “Vysrah!!” and the rapid clopping of small hooves.

A small half fuzzy shape hit around my knees, and I bent to her level with an exaggerated, “Oomph!”

“Hello, sweet Yoral.” I said, and scooped the satyr faerie onto my hip with a flourish. Her slight weight balanced easily between my hip and my left arm, and her black and white goat legs kicked idly as she began to braid loose strands of my rapidly deteriorating bun.

“Vysrah! How are you? How has your week been? Did you finish your painting? Who is this? He has pretty wings like you do. Why do bats only come out at night? What are we painting today?”

Her endless stream of questions eventually ran out, and she looked at me, wide brown eyes trained on me with burning intensity, waiting for answers, and I obliged her. I answered all of her questions and introduced her and Azriel as I set up her small easel and set her up with brushes and a high lipped painting tray. We worked in tandem, my lack of a left arm made up for by her two, and she talked rapid fire the whole time, filling me in on every adventure she and her family’s dog had been on since the last class.

I glanced at Azriel over top of her horns and ringlet curls, and found him smiling as he watched me, wide and open, shadows back from his face, wings lit reddish by the sun through the windows, hands idly in his pockets; I lost my train of thought. I remembered our date tonight, and excitement as well as magic coursed through me. 

“Are you listening?” accused a small voice, and I looked back to Yoral on my hip.

“Of course, sweet Yoral,” I answered, and handed her a paint brush. 

She launched back into her rapid speech, now waving the paint brush for emphasis, and I tried to keep my attention trained on her, and not the handsome male watching us with that dopey smile on his face.

*Azriel 

Vysrah looked… so happy, with a paintbrush stuck through her bun and Yoral nearly yelling in her ear. Sunlight and tattoos and wings cleared my mind of anything at all to say. I realized at the same moment that Feyre sat down at the front of the room that the lesson was starting, I had been staring like a fool, and that I was late yet again to meet Rhys. 

“I’ll see you tonight.” I murmured to Vysrah as I passed, and was rewarded by her turning red to the tips of her ears and Yoral turning to her excitedly. Instead of ducking like I thought she would, she met my eyes and winked, before turning back to her easel and to, I was sure, Yoral’s thousand questions.

My face still burning, I took to the skies.

*Vysrah 

“Is he your boyfriend?” Yoral whispered badly into my ear from her perch on my knee.

“Listen to High Lady Feyre.” I countered.

“But is he?” she tugged my earlobe, avoiding the studs and hoops there, “Vysrahhh.”

“If I tell you we have a date tonight will you listen to Feyre?” I whispered back conspiratorially.

She nodded her head rapidly, and I suppressed my smile.

“We have our first date tonight.” I told the crown of her head.

Yoral looked at me, and smirked. “You liiike him.” 

“Of course I do! Now listen to your High Lady teach you to paint trees.”

As promised, Yoral turned and trained all that concentration on Feyre, and I had a moment to breathe.

…

A little over an hour later, Feyre and I sat with cups of tea, as Feyre’s magic flitted around the room, cleaning as it went. 

“How do you do that?” I asked, watching a paint splatter remove itself from the floor and deposit itself into the sink.

“I’ve been working on it a while,” Feyre said, “It’s not a spell, it’s just magic and intent.”

Intrigued, I sent a wisp of cloudy purple magic to another spot that needed cleaning, and with a mental twist, the paint picked itself up and joined Feyre’s in the sink. I grinned. New ways of doing magic, even simple magic, fascinated me. 

“Yoral was quiet before you started volunteering.” Feyre mused, raising an eyebrow at me.

The gesture was so very Rhysand of her I smiled, and stretched out a wing. “I think she enjoys having someone here who doesn’t look like a variant of High Fae. Everyone else has different coloring or texturing, maybe horns or antlers,” I said, thinking of an antlered boy and his small sister, “but Yoral and I have wholly different body parts.”

“I should wear my wings more to teach, then.” Feyre decided, and I smiled at her. 

“She made Azriel turn pink when she called his wings pretty today.” I told Feyre.

And then I stopped. Feyre’s neatening up spell could easily have applied to wings. I looked at her, and I knew she could see things clicking together for me.  
“Don’t be mad!” my High Lady squeaked. “He’s got such a huge crush on you. He just needed a little… push.” 

I sipped my drink to let her feel bad for a moment while I thought things through. I needed to stop being surprised by the kindness of my court. 

“We have a date tonight,” I admitted, “and I may have also needed a small push.”

Feyre lit up, and I could tell it was genuine as she grasped my hand and asked, “What did he say?”

I told her, and she gasped and sighed along with me, and when we finished our tea, she said, “You should get Mor to go shopping with you. She knows nearly all the designers and clothiers in Velaris.”

Having flown over the shopping quarter with Azriel several times, that was a substantial number of people.

“All of them?” I clarified, and Feyre laughed.

“That’s what I said!”

I loosened my hair from it’s now sad little bun and shook out the dark length as I asked, “Where can I find Mor?”

“She’s usually in her office in the river house, unless she has some meeting.” Feyre answered, “and if she’s not there Nualla or Ceridwen could find her for you.”

“I won’t bother them if it comes to that, but thank you.” I said, and gathered my bag to head back to the house and get out of my paint splattered clothes.

Feyre smiled, my High Lady in an old shirt and paint covered apron, and I couldn’t resist the slight duck of my head to her, Feyre Cursebreaker. She pshawed and shuffled me out into the early afternoon sunlight, already welcoming more volunteers for the next painting class today. 

The sun heated stones under my feet convinced me to walk back across the river rather than fly, and I meandered through bustling streets of busy people. Strangers called to one another, and people chatted alongside small tea shops and vendors carts. I didn’t hear one voice raised in anger. I basked in it, the peace and the life crammed together in this city, the vines growing up buildings and trellises of jasmine pouring from upper level apartment balconies.

I bought some strange, honey coated pastry from a street cart, and relished the friendly, harried air of the vendor, a male who looked nearly like a tree, right down to the green hair. It seemed like this place was made to be the opposite of Illyria, warm and caring to Illyria’s harsh and unforgiving. Sun on my wings and honey on my fingers, I crossed the bridge over the river and headed into the river house.


	10. Chapter 10

Around ten minutes later, I was dressed much the same as before, minus paint stains, and was sitting in Mor’s gorgeous office. Things from seemingly every place in the world lined the walls and sat on shelves alongside books and small metal contraptions, carpets layered the floors, in so many patterns I could have spent an afternoon examining them all, and windows stood open to welcome the summer breeze of the Sidra, ruffling heavy drapes. 

Mor sat at her massive desk, amethyst mating band on her finger catching the light with her hand’s movements.

“I need you to come shopping with me,” I was saying, and her brown eyes lit with interest.

“What’s the occasion?” Mor asked, setting down her pen. She reminded me of a mountain cat, with all that coiled energy and grace.

“I have a date tonight.” I said, and Mor’s eyes glowed.

“With who?” she asked too innocently, and I knew she had one blue-siphoned guess.

“Az.” I answered, and Morrigan’s coiled grace disappeared as she squealed and jumped up from her desk.

“I knew he would get there!” She gushed, gathering a bag and tying back her hair. “His shadows never react to anyone the way they act around you.”

I realized we were leaving and followed her out of the office and down the hallway.

“Nualla! We’re going shopping! Come if you want!” she called into thin air, and a few steps later a black haired faerie was at our sides, a small smile on her face. 

“I think I’ll sit this one out,” she said, her quiet, lilting voice was almost musical. “The sun is bright today.”

“Bring an umbrella.” Mor retorted, and Nualla chuckled and waved her off, blending back into the shadows until she was gone.

Mor sighed, “Half wraiths don’t do well in bright sun,” she explained as we crossed the foyer. “But she has such a good eye I hoped she’d come with us anyway.”

...

The Palace of Jewels and Thread, the gorgeous shopping quarter, was nearly as busy as the artist’s quarter, but Mor led us from shop to shop with practiced ease, asking me more questions about clothes than I’d ever considered. Styles and cuts and fabrics and embroidery. I felt like I was learning a new language, swept along by Mor as she flitted in and out of shops, greeting the owners and most of the shop girls by name.

Everything Mor pulled off of a rack was beautiful, but we soon narrowed down our search to more simple designs. I loved the cuts favored in Velaris, loose cropped shirts and flowing pants, comfortable but beautiful, and Mor and I tried on nearly a dozen before we wandered into a corner shop. 

It was similar to the others we’d been in, displays and racks and curtained off dressing area, but it seemed… older. The floors were stone, sunlight lit dustmotes in the air. Mor noticed me looking around curiously. 

“Madame Ghoshp has owned this store for centuries.” Mor explained quietly. “It just might be my favorite anywhere.”

Despite her quiet tone, a sonorous voice declared, “Lovely Morrigan, this is your favorite shop, or has three hundred years not proven enough to you?”

Morrigan laughed, and met the short high fae in the middle of the store. Ghoshp pulled her down into a hug, and Mor kissed both her cheeks.

“Where is that gorgeous mate of yours, dear?” Ghoshp asked, tucking her hand under an arm. “I’ve got something just perfect for her.”

Mor was smiling, “I’m actually here to help a friend today, but I’ll tell Jesna you're thinking of her.” 

Suddenly, all of Madame Ghoshp’s attention was on me, and I took in her fully grey hair braided back into a bun, her shawl was deep red, and the ends waved through the air as she gestured with her hands.

“What’s the occasion, warrioress?” she asked, sharp eyes seeming to measure me as I stood before her.

“A date.” I answered, a bit dumbly.

And the older woman put her hands on her hips. “Details, child! Where are you going, what are you doing, how long have you been together?”

“You need all that?” I asked, questions overpowering the urge to stay silent around the brusque female.

“I need to know the mood, child.” she said, trailing a hand through a rack of sparkling clothes so beautiful I couldn’t believe they were for wearing. “Can’t have you showing up dressed to dine for a dance, now can I?” 

Morrigan had fallen into conversation with the only other person in the store, she appeared to be a seamstress, judging by her apron. Morrigan was weedling chuckles out of her while they talked.

I looked back to Mrs. Ghoshp. She was one of the most mature fae I’d ever met, wrinkled and greyed, and despite the sharpness, I found myself trusting her. I told her everything, and by the end, her eyes had softened a bit.

“First dates are nervous things.” She said decisively, “I’ll have you dressed so gorgeously neither one of you will even remember to be nervous.” and tucked my arm under hers, guiding me down an isle.

I smiled, and admired the sparkling gowns and matched sets she plucked out, held up to me, and then put back, muttering to herself as we went.

“Who is the lucky male?” She asked as she worked.

“Azriel, the shadowsinger in Rhysa-”

“I know who Azriel is,” Mrs. Ghoshp interrupted, turning to look at me. I was surprised to see genuine joy in her eyes. 

“It’s about time that boy found himself someone.” she said. “And you, just as pretty and fierce as a sunset. You can call me Dova, dearest. Anyone Az likes, I like. Come with me. Now that I think of it, I’ve got just the thing.” I let Dova guide me to a small back alcove, head still swimming with complements and words to do much more than follow meekly.

It was just the thing. So much so that I gasped when she held it out between her outstretched hands.

Dova laughed, and said, “That sounds like a ‘yes’ to trying it on?”

I nodded, and she led me to a small curtained off portion in the back of the store. As I tugged off my clothes behind the curtain, I asked, “How do you know Azriel?”

I could hear the smile in her voice as she said, “He’s been coming to me for nice clothes for longer than Mor has.”

I stopped what I was doing, and she laughed. 

“Cassian may be content to wear his flying leathers everywhere, but Azriel has better tastes.” Dova said, sliding me the bottoms through the curtains. 

I smiled, now that she mentioned it, I did see Az in tailored clothes whenever he wasn’t working. The top came next, and putting it on around my wings took a bit of shimmying, but I managed it.

“Ready?” Dova asked, and I stepped through the curtains in answer.

I decided I loved silk in that moment, the movement of my wide legged pants swaying like a skirt, the beading around the bottom emphasising the movement, and swaying just below my knees. A beaded belt held them at my waist, and the top allowed just a sliver of toned and freckled stomach to show when I shifted. I took a breath, and the fully beaded top flashed subtly silver with the movement, tiny beads catching the light, and allowing the deep blue silk to show when in shadow. The thin cords that held up the deeply cut vee of the top allowed my tattoos to be fully on display, and the back dipped low enough to allow for my wings without alteration. The vee dipped daringly low, to the center of my chest, where the lines of my Illyrian tattoo converged to a point.

“Wow.” I said to my reflection in the mirror.

Dova crossed her arms with a satisfied smile.

“You’ve been holding out on me!” Mor proclaimed with exaggerated feeling from her vantage point perched on a stool.

“Blue isn't your color, dear.” Dova said, and I swayed, admiring the feel of the light but heavy-from-beading fabric swirling around my legs.

“Wow.” I said again, a bit beyond words. No one had ever seen fit to mention to me I was beautiful? Except for Dova, I realized. How had I not noticed? I never really paid much attention to my looks in Illyria. Fighting and training and magic kept my attention trained on what my body could do, not what it looked like. I smiled at myself, and turned to admire the back of the outfit.

“The look of a confident female.” Dova said with satisfaction. 

I smiled at her in the mirror.

Around fifteen minutes later, the gorgeous set was in a black bag on my wrist, and I was signing my name to the credit list. The substantial sum, I realized with no small amount of shock, wouldn’t even put a dent in my funds from the salary I received. 

Dova kissed Mor and I on both cheeks and walked us to the door, and winked at me on my way out. Mor and I were both grinning as we headed back out into the square, my bag swinging on my wrist.

“She’s amazing.” I told Mor, as we wound back through the shopping quarter, late afternoon sun slanting over the rooftops and throwing the street level into shadow. 

Mor giggled. “She didn’t let me call her Dova for the first fifty years. I think you made a good impression.”

I grinned, and a flurry of nerves set up shop in my stomach when I noticed the time. Mor must have seen it on my face, because she asked, “Can I do your makeup for you?” as we headed back across the river.

“Only if you explain as you go so I can learn to do it on my own.” I replied, and Mor laughed, “I’ll teach you everything I know.”

 

… 

 

Taking a bath, and letting Mor in to help with my makeup and hair took my attention away from obsessing over my nerves, but not completely. As the sun set, I tried to pace while Mor put another thin braid in my hair. 

“How am I supposed to eat like this?” I was asking. “I’m so nervous I might throw up instead.”

Mor set the braid with a fizz of magic and plopped me down in my chair.

“Vysrah,” she said, and I met her deep brown gaze, “I guarantee you Azriel is just as nervous as you right now.” I snorted, and she raised an eyebrow. “If I know either of them at all, Cassian is trying to talk him down and Azriel is wearing a path in the rug pacing.”

I giggled, and felt my shoulders relax a bit, and my wings behind me.

“Besides,” Mor said, “you both obviously care for each other. Why bother being nervous when you already know that?”

That was precisely the reason why I was nervous, but I nodded. Mor finished braiding my hair back from my face, and stepped back to admire her work.

I looked in the mirror. My hair was braided half up, the rest falling in loose waves, with little braids scattered through the length and wound through the larger braid. She’d darkened my brows, and lined my eyes with delicate swipes of khol. Blotted and muted red colored my lips subtly enough not to clash with the blue. Bolder, features more emphasised, but still me. I smiled at myself, and Mor held up my outfit.

“He really is going to fall on the floor when he sees you in this.” she said.

Instead of replying that I felt like I was going to fall on the floor, I said, “Thank you, for dropping your whole afternoon to help me.”

Mor waved a hand, and rummaged through my enchanted chest of drawers. “It does the court of Nightmares good to wait every once in a while.” 

She turned, with long silver earrings in one hand. I removed the hoop and stud from my bottom lobes and threaded them through. The simple silver drops flashed against my dark hair, and brushed against the sides of my neck when I moved my head.

“And I’m happy to help if you ever need anything.” Mor said, her tone more serious than our previous conversation. “Azriel related or not. If you just need someone to talk to, I’m here.”  
I swallowed around a sudden lump in my throat, and blinked quickly a few times. 

“Don’t ruin my makeup job.” she said lightly, diffusing the thick emotion in the room like a draft of air. “Go change.” With a pat on my shoulder, she slid out the door, and I was alone with fifteen minutes to eight.

Changing took less than five minutes, and when I emerged from my bathroom, I felt a bit more settled. Mor had a point, this was Azriel, my favorite sparring and flying partner, I trusted him with my wings, he wasn’t some stranger. I wanted this, enough so that nerves gradually were overcome by excitement. I smiled at myself in the mirror, and slipped my feet into the little black slippers Mor had leant me. I noticed a shape on the dresser and turned, savoring the swirl of silk around my knees.

A tumblr with a finger of what I instantly knew was Cassian’s favorite Illyrian whiskey sat on the dresser, along with a grey shawl and a note. Already smiling, I picked up the note and the whiskey.

The first side read, “Love you, Batling, have fun.” in Cassian’s unmistakeable scrawl. 

The back, in Nesta’s precise script, read, “Your Bat got the same whiskey pep talk. I’ll just give you a shawl and say to relax and remember you like him. No brawling. -N”

A smile on my face, I downed the whiskey and tucked the shawl, an Illyrian design made to drape between wings, and long enough to wrap around the bases in the winter, into a magical pocket of space. I glanced at the clock on the wall. Early. But to hell with it. I couldn’t wait in here any longer. 

I left the empty glass on the dresser, and slipped out the door.


	11. Chapter 11

The hallways were quiet, and I made no sound out of habit as I descended the two flights to the foyer level.  
The grand staircase had two wings that met in the center to descend to the middle of the foyer, and a sitting room just off the front door seemed strangely full of people. I caught a glimpse of Cassian and Feyre, and a blonde head I suspected was Elain. 

At the top of the stairs, I did a quick sweep of the foyer. No Azriel. I started down the steps anyway, I’d never really noticed how many steps there were to the ground before, but it seemed endless now. I didn’t make it far. At the opposite staircase down to the foyer, I caught a flicker of movement.

I looked up, and I took in Azriel. His dark charcoal shirt and black pants were well made and well tailored, a blue handkerchief was tucked into his breast pocket for just a bit of color. He’d left the collar of his shirt undone, just enough for a few lines of tattoo to show, and the sleeves of his shirt were rolled back over his forearms for the balmy night. His shadows were muted, clinging around his ankles and wings rather than coiling freely around him. I stopped.  
Battled for a moment with the magic in my chest roaring at me and my ears ringing because… wow. 

I knew he was thinking the same thing, because he took me in, and from across the foyer I saw his mouth fall open. A smile I’d never felt before tugged the corners of my mouth, and the last of my nerves dissipated like they’d never been there at all. Confidence straightened my spine, and I stalked down the stairs towards him, his eyes tracked me the whole way. Azriel met me in the middle, and I smiled up at him.

Shadows instantly swirled around us both, and I trailed a hand through their cool presence. 

Azriel swallowed, like he had trouble making his voice work, and said, “Vysrah, you look absolutely stunning.”

I flicked my eyes over him again, his wings spread a bit when he noticed, and I answered, “So do you.” in a voice a tad huskier than I’d intended.

I enjoyed the shade of red he turned as we descended the main stairs together. I eyed that sitting room as we got closer, there were far more people in there than just the three I’d seen earlier. It seemed like every member of the Court except for Az and I was present. Someone hushed the murmuring, and the room fell quiet as Az and I neared it on our walk to the door.

I glanced at Azriel from the corner of my eye. He was fighting back laughter. Shoulders shaking, he met my eyes, and the dam broke, both he and I roared with laughter, and several voices in the sitting room started murmuring accusatorily.

Cassian’s head emerged from the doorway, and when I saw the contrived innocence on his face, I bent double, laughing so hard I clutched my stomach. When Azriel had said everyone would want to gossip, he’d meant everyone. 

“I told you so.” he told me, still grinning.

“You really did.” I replied, “I just thought you were exaggerating.”

Cassian, from the doorway, called, “What are you laughing at? Nesta and I are just in here reading.”

“And Feyre, and Elain, and Rhysand, and probably Lucien and Amren too.” Azriel said, so only I could hear, and I was gone again.

Remastering myself, I told Cassian, “Just admit you wanted to see me all dressed up and go gossip.” 

“Don’t be silly, Batling,” Cassian said, without missing a beat, “I came to offer Azriel a legal witness for his first date in over a century.”

From inside the room, a voice I knew was Mor’s called, “Ouch!” followed by a cascade of laughter and what I suspected was the clinking of wine glasses.

My slipper, favored weapon of Illyrian mothers for aeons, was in my hand and brandished menacingly at Cassian before I really thought about what I was doing. He yelped and ducked back inside. He knew my aim from experience. 

A moment later Nesta’s voice called, “No brawling!” and my shoe was firmly back on my foot. 

Azriel watched it all with a look stuck between shock and amusement, and I raised a brow at him and gestured to the door, “Shall we? Now that we’ve given them something to talk about?”

He was still smiling as we stepped through the door, through the wards, and into the balmy night. 

“I’ve never seen Cassian be menaced with a shoe by anyone who’s under eight hundred.” he chuckled.

“I threw my boot at him once.” I replied, startling laughter out of him. “I was young and cold!” I protested.

“Did he deserve it?” 

“He had just made me fly 3 miles in the sleet, with a thirty pound pack, so I’d like to think so.” I smiled at the memory of those soggy, angry, early days of training, and Azriel held open the gate for me.

We stepped onto the road to cross the river and into Velaris proper, a thin sliver moon allowed millions of stars to outshine its dim light, blanketing the clear summer night sky in so many breathtaking pinpricks of light I had no trouble seeing. I looked up, taking it in for a moment, enjoying the breeze on my wings and the stars scattered above me.

I noticed him watching me, and I watched him back for a few seconds before asking, “Where are we going to dinner?” 

He smirked, and remained silent.

I sighed loudly. “You and Cassian and your flair for the dramatic.”

“I’d definitely include Rhysand on that list.” he said, and I snickered.

“He’s a High Lord, that’s what they do. The rest of you have no excuse.”

Azriel smiled, and brushed his wing against mine. I stepped into him and brushed my shoulder against his. I never got tired of seeing his emotions break over his face, the change from his quietly intense expression when he was thinking to the crinkles at the corners of his eyes when he smiled at me like that. 

The center of my chest felt warm, and he chuckled, “Do I have something on my face?”

I reshuffled my wings at my back and said, “A really nice smile.”

I could see him turn red even by the thin moon, and a small lick of satisfaction lit through me. I could do that to him. He had infinitely more experience with… this, and I could still affect him. It wasn’t just me and my inexperience. 

“You think so?” he asked softly, and shadows curled at his shirt collar. 

Our pace had slowed, and we finally stopped completely.

… Azriel ...

“Yes.” she breathed, and then smiled. “I like your one dimple. Whenever I see you smile it makes me smile.”

The corners of my mouth curved up, and I dared a step closer to her, the dim light setting her top glimmering. Nerves jangled through me like a discordant note on a piano, and I pushed away the feeling of walking on a tightrope. Just like Cassian said, it was Vysrah. She had dumped me on my ass at swordpoint this morning. I knew her. I didn’t need to be terrified of a dinner with her. 

But, the stakes of a misstep… of too much too fast… of anything. It made it hard to think straight. Never, in any relationship I’d been in, had nerves held me frozen by the throat so surely. 

“Hey,” Vysrah said, and I looked into her amber eyes, “I’m nervous too.” she said, and her wing reached to brush mine. She took my arm, looped her elbow through mine, and we started walking again, the worn cobblestones of the city absorbing the sounds of our shoes as we went.

“I have no clue what I’m doing.” she continued, shrugging a wing and strolling along beside me, like she wasn't explaining exactly my own emotions to me. She glanced at me, and then back ahead. “But, I like you. Being around you,” I tightened my arm a bit, and she squeezed back and continued, “being with you, makes me happy. So I’m really nervous. But I’m trying to relax, and enjoy my time with you, like when we fly together.”

She glanced back at me, and I was hit so hard by an avalanche of instinct and emotion I blinked, had to mentally beat it back and swallow before I could get my voice to work.

“You’re amazing.” I told her, and brushed my free hand across her knuckles on my forearm.

She grinned, and I said, “I guess I haven’t wanted to impress anyone in a few centuries.”

Her smile turned coy, and she said, “You impressed me that first time you beat me during the dawn workout, the rest has just been getting to know you.”

A laugh, genuine and unexpected, burst from me, and she chuckled and leaned into me. Her wing brushed mine, and we fell into step, our wings resting against the other’s and arm in arm, like we'd been doing this for aeons, and I hadn't just frozen at the impulse to kiss her like a thirteen year old.

The night breeze swept by, and the tension eased from me, I leaned my cheek over into the top of her head and murmured, “Thank you.” into her silky hair.

Her arm tightened against mine, and she answered, “Happy to help.”

One block later, and I led her down a well lit street of restaurants and a few shops, the Sidra on our left sloping down to the docks and the ocean.

I could feel her curiosity, even though she didn’t speak it. We passed restaurants with and without patio spaces, bustling with bodies and laughter as well as quiet, refined places. Fae lights lined the streets at regular intervals, casting their buttery light strong enough to light the way, but dimly enough not to smudge out the stars overhead. Small river boats rocked gently in their moorings, and people strolled along the river bank.

We walked nearly all the way to the end of the street. The last building was the tallest. She looked up, and I watched her notice the roof seemed to glow. I smiled, I couldn’t wait to show her.  
The green painted door was propped open, and entered to a small, but clean and well kept hallway. Stairs led up, the hallway continued to the kitchen. We went up a level, and then another, and then two more, not leaving the stairwell, I hoped no one was out in the hallways. I wanted to explain first. 

She stepped onto the roof first, and stopped immediately. I smiled, everyone stopped the first time they saw the roof. I could feel her wonder like it was my own, and I put my arm her shoulder, she looped an arm around my waist like she needed an anchor while she took it in, and I was happy to oblige her.

Hundreds of tiny fae lights drifted through the air just over head, and save for the narrow trellises for jasmine and other night blooming vines, the roof was open air. It seemed the stars had come to roost in the air just above the tables. 

A few other people were seated, but it wasn’t truly busy, not on a weeknight, so I led her to a table near the raised stucco wall, the city, the Sidra, and the night sky on the ocean all painting a scene so beautiful I resolved to have Feyre take it out of my mind and paint it. It all paled in comparison to her as I pulled out her chair, trying not to stare too obviously. My attention caught on a small braid as it fell over her shoulder. The way her top glimmered when she took a breath. 

She didn’t get seated though, because a familiar voice called from the stairwell, “Az! Who’s this then!” 

Anmirie swept towards us, her simple, well made skirts flying around her calves. Her honey blonde hair was piled on top of her head with a scarf, and her wings were folded neatly at her back. As she swept me into a brisk hug, I smiled. My shadows however, kept well back. 

Anmirie, the short and ever so slightly plump Illyrian woman who ran this place, turned on Vysrah with a smile that promised warmth and comfort and good food.

“So like the males to leave us to introduce ourselves,” she said, and I interjected with, “You didn’t give me the chance, mavsa.”

“And so rude! Interrupting us as if we hadn’t a thing at all to say.” she snapped a handkerchief out of a pocket at me without looking.

I sighed, and Vysrah’s lips quirked to the side in a repressed smile.

“I’m Anmirie, the mavsa of this refuge.” she said, and to me, her warm voice and rolling Illyrian burr sounded like safety and warm hearths.

Vysrah’s eyes narrowed. I knew she was thinking rapidly. Mavsa. The Illyrian term for a woman leader, or elder, maybe wise woman, an Illyrian catch all term.

“I’m Vysrah,” she replied, and stuck out her hand.

“Otch” said Anmirie, and pulled her down to a hug as well. 

Anmirie had us seated and was off telling the cooks I was here, when Vysrah said quietly, “What is this place?” 

I took a breath, “They’ve named it Cariad. It’s a shelter, for Illyrian women. This roof is the restaurant they run. They don’t need the money now, but Anmirie says it gives them all something good to do.”

Cariad. The Illyrian word for pulse. Vysrah was quiet for a moment. “Are-” she swallowed and tried again. “Are the levels we passed rooms?”

“Yes.” I said. There are about fifty females living here-”

“Fifty!” Vysrah interrupted, and I met her gaze.

Silver lined her eyes, I was so surprised to see her close to tears I grasped her hand without thinking. It shook against my palm.

“Vysrah, is something wrong?” I asked, as concern shot through me like a lance.

“No!” she said. Took a deep breath. Another. “This is- this place- is something I’d always hoped existed.” she cast her eyes around the roof again. “I wanted to start something like this. I was going to save up my salary and start a refuge, just like this.” She smiled, a bit shakily. “It shook me up a bit to see my dream already come to fruition.”

She looked around again, like she was in a dream, and I brushed my thumb over her knuckles.

“Who founded Cariad?” she asked, and my thumb stilled on her hand.

“I did.” I said. I dipped my gaze back to the table. Maybe it had been too much, taking her here straight away, but... this place, this little part of myself, I wanted to share with her.

She turned her hand over, and was holding mine. 

“The rest of the Court poured money in, once they found out,” I explained, “But at first, it was just me and Anmirie and another Illyrian girl. The restaurant was Anmirie’s idea, and the others have taken it up too.” 

“Thank you.” she breathed, casting her eyes over the roof again. “Thank you for starting this.” her hand drifted to the center of her chest, “It’s... actually a dream come true.” she said, and swallowed hard.

“Then we dreamt the same.” I said quietly. 

I could see the storm of emotion on her face, and gave her a minute to recoup. I would have saved Cariad for maybe the second date if I had known what I knew now, but, we were here, and Anmirie was heading back to our table with a bottle under one arm.

Vysrah smiled up at her, having mastered herself, and Anmirie poured us both wine from a suspiciously old bottle. She caught me eyeing it, and she smirked at me. I scowled. 

Before I could tell her she shouldn't have gone through the trouble, she whapped me soundly with a wing as she poured, “Rhysand sent it over just before the two of you arrived, don’t fret.”  
I scented the wine. Felt my eyebrows lift. Damn. The male had fine taste. Frightfully expensive taste, but excellent, wonderful taste in wine. Vysrah sipped her glass and hummed appreciatively, sipped again. 

Her eyes met mine from across the table, and they sparkled with her smile. Warmth spread through me, head to toe; and I reached for her hand, broad and freckled and callused in all the same places as mine. She didn't pull away.

 

… Vysrah … 

Dinner passed in a volley of Illyrian dishes I hadn’t had since leaving the mountains. Baked rice pilafs and currys and flatbreads, more intricate than the stew pots common in the war camps, made differently depending on region and altitude in the mountains. I tried new things I’d never heard of, from all different corners of Illyria, all of it was so good, Anmirie never took away a plate with food left on it.

When I finished off my last helping, I sat back.

“Who’d have guessed I’d have to leave Illyria to have good Illyrian food?”

A hint of a smile ghosted across Azriel’s face. “Every time I come here, they stuff me so full I feel like I waddle down the stairs.”

I snorted.

A real smile broke out on his face, and I sipped my third glass of that excellent wine. “Where to next?” I asked.

He eyed the view out over the city for a moment, “If you’re up for it, it’d be a beautiful night for a walk on the beach.”

“I haven’t been to the beach yet!”

Azriel's answering smile made my heart do strange contortions in my chest.

…

We said our goodbyes to Anmirie, who kissed us both on our cheeks as we passed, and stepped back out into the city.

More people were out, milling around and laughing in groups, wandering from open storefront to the next, and I admired the way the faelights glowed against window panes as we passed them. I brushed my hand against the braid where Byrr had curled himself, remembering his presence for the first time since the river house. He buzzed affectionately against my hand, and seemed content to stay where he was.

The cobbled streets sloped downhill slowly, but the saltier tang in the air became unmistakable as we neared the docks and veered towards a rocky outcropping where the surf had worn away enough rock and soil to form a small stretch of beach. 

Jumbled rocks and boulders, likely from the clearing of the harbor nearby centuries before, sectioned it off from most of the buzz of the city. The surf rushing gently against the sand was the loudest noise, and the stars reflected onto the ocean in a watery, shifting reflection.

I looked at Azriel. He smiled over at me, and kicked off his shoes, stretching his wings in the wind off the ocean. I grinned at him, and left my slippers beside his shoes. Warm sand underfoot, we walked down to the ocean. It was strange, and a bit hypnotizing watching the gentle waves curl and break onto the shore near my toes; and then to look out over the great, shifting expanse of water and know it continued on for thousands of miles.

I took a step into the retreating surf, and the cool water rushed around my feet for a moment before sliding back, carrying away sand from underfoot as it went. A moment later, the ocean swirled around my ankles, seawater and sand eddying around where I had planted my feet. I couldn’t hold back my grin. It kind of… tickled. A sea wind buffeted me, and I arched my wings into it, enjoying the cool breeze and warm night air. A slight splash, and Az was beside me, pants legs rolled up and ankle deep in the surf. 

One of his larger shadows coiled around my shoulder, and I think he pretended not to notice as I ran my hand through a section of it near me. It rumbled out a noise in my head that reminded me of a purr, and I tried not to laugh.

The ocean eddying around our ankles, we wandered down the beach. Lumps and smooth ridges underfoot marked shells in the sand, and I resisted the urge to stop and dig one free to look at. The brisk wind off the ocean ruffled my hair, and I glanced over at Azriel. 

He looked less guarded than I’d ever seen him, his shoulders were relaxed, and his shadows seemed to drift off of him, not obscuring him. I noted they moved to their own wind, and not the ocean’s, with a glimmer of fascination.

He smiled over at me, open and breathtaking, and I grinned back; then my years with Cassian got the best of me, and I kicked a bit of water at him.

He whirled towards me, mouth open a bit in shock. I couldn’t help myself. I cackled and did it again.

Azriel growled in mock outrage, I could see the smile on his face in the starlight.

When the waves rolled in, he scooped water into a wing and flung it at me in an arc. I yelped and flapped out of the way, making sure my landing got just the hem of his pants wet.  
I met his eyes, and a wild feeling erupted in my chest, challenge and answer. I let him see my grin and my wink, and then I was running, sprinting over the water packed sand. I heard his shout, and then, quick as lightning, he caught up with me. 

I snapped a wing out at him as we hurtled down the beach, and he ducked it without loosing a hint of speed. I saw the slash of his grin, wild and unbridled, as we raced down the beach, snapping and weaving around each other. Call and answer. Ebb and flow. Strike and block. 

A laugh burst from me, and I poured on more speed, tucking my wings in tight. Shadows and ocean spray in the air, I wanted to run forever. I felt like I was flying on land. Azriel darted in front of me, and I snapped out my wings, using my speed as momentum for a somersault over his head. I slammed back into the surf in front of him, bringing our wild sprint to a halt.  
I was closer to him then I’d aimed. 

Our breaths mingled in the warm night air, and I swallowed hard. He was barely winded, his massive wings spread out at his sides to aid his stop and shadows darkening the air around him. I panted a bit, too full from dinner to sprint for long without feeling it, and fanned my wings out at my sides. He watched my wings with heat that had every instinct and every ounce of my magic pulling me towards him. I swallowed again, I had caught my breath but I still felt… lighter. Lightheaded? 

There was a heavy pause, like he was weighing his next move. I resisted the pull to lean closer; like I had from our first meeting, when I had shattered a wine glass in my hand and his shadows had wound around me like cats.

I was giddy, I decided, as I met his eyes and saw the same shaky feeling mirrored there. He slowly reached up, and a broad, gentle hand brushed my hair back from my temple. The corners of my mouth lifted in a small smile, a go ahead, a yes please, and then his cautious hand brushed the corner of my jaw as a swell of my new magic made me feel molten. 

My head tilted back as his hand ran down my jaw, and I fought the urge to bunch my hands in his shirt for an anchor. I took a shuddering inhale, and his gaze flicked down to my lips. Heat spiked through me, dizzying and intense, and the ocean rushed around our ankles, its pull growing stronger as the tide came in. 

A peal of laughter sounded down the beach, and I jumped so hard my wings shot straight out behind me. Suddenly, I was not on a beach, but in cold mountains, and not a sweet sea breeze, but a brisk mountain current sang to me.  
…

Mocking laughter sounded from behind me- my only warning to brace for the small group of Illyrians that I’d sensed following me. I tensed, searching for them with my senses, not giving any indication I'd heard. I felt one lunge for me, and whirled into the familiar fight, praying they wouldn’t scare away all the game as I punched and whirled and kicked.

...

Azriel was a few feet away almost instantly with barely a splash, even his shadows pulled away. I felt suddenly exposed without them. I couldn’t stop myself from glancing down the beach.  
Two female faeries walked hand in hand, strolling the opposite direction down the beach, giving no indication they even knew we were here. As if to prove it, the taller one bent the other down to a dramatic kiss in the surf. I blew out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d gulped in and reshuffled my wings at my back, feeling foolish for jumping like a spooked horse.

I peeked at Azriel. Trying to get a read on what he was thinking of my … little moment. His eyes were wide in the dim light, and his hand rested against the center of his chest, scars glinting dully. 

I sloshed a step back towards him, and tried a smile.

“Sorry about that.” I told him quietly. His hand hadn’t left his chest. My golden magic gave a fizz of energy in my own chest, and I put aside the urge to rub it.

Azriel shook his head. Seemed to debate saying something for a moment.

Then, “They hunted you, when you left Camp to trap food.” quiet, sizzling anger laced through every word.

How had he known? 

“Mostly for fun.” I tried to dismiss it, “Only a few ever got overzealous. And they learned their lesson the hard way.”

“Fun for them.” Azriel said lethally. “Where was Cassian?”

“Not in the picture yet.” I shot back, “And I did fine enough on my own.”

Azriel suddenly loomed over me, shadows reaching down to brush the tops of my shoulders, down my arms. Chill bumps raised in their wake.

“I’d never suggest you didn’t.” Azriel glowered for a moment, “But I can’t deny I’m livid you had to.”

I smiled then, and slowly unfolded and reached my wing forward to brush against his tucked behind his back. He half spread them in answer, and it occured to me for the thousandth time that his wings were huge as the edge of his wing traced along mine and the other arched seemingly endlessly into the night.

“Cariad is helping to make sure no more Illyrians go through what we did.” 

Azriel nodded, and swallowed thickly.

How did I ask politely for him to continue where he left off?

The ocean slammed around our calves in the water, each wave creeping higher.

Azriel glanced down at me, a small smile flickering over his features, “We should probably go get our shoes before we have to walk home barefoot.”

“That’s what we have wings for.”

I felt his low chuckle, and I wound my arm through his as we walked back up the beach. 

Dusting the sand off his feet, wings outstretched for balance, Azriel asked, “Walk home or fly home?”

I shoved my feet into my slippers, quipped, “I think you know the answer to that.” and shot into the sky in one wingbeat, whipping the sand around me out in a circle.

I circled overhead, laughing as his curses drifted up to me on the wind, and then banked into the sea breeze. He was beside me a moment later, and we soared out over the ocean together, the thermals pushing us higher and higher, until the wine dark sea shifted to one horizon, and the lights of Velaris glowed in a warm crescent hugging the coast.

I rolled in the cool sea air, enjoying- savoring, the night, the height, and the male beside me so much I thought it might burst from my chest. The magic there swelled, and the oddest sensation, a memory- but not one of my own, filtered into my mind like grains of sand in an hourglass.  
…  
Wind lashed my sore wings. Tore right through my threadbare pants and straight to the skin underneath. A fresh wave of gratitude surged for the thick, heavy sweater Rhysand’s mother had made each of us for Solstice. 

Rhysand dropped a stick at us from where he circled above, already airborne and waiting for us. The stick clacked against the stone outcropping and spun off into the trees below. Just as I was about to do. Again.

Cassian baited beside me, and I shifted on my feet, a shadow blooming beside my wing. He glanced at me, gave me the lopsided grin that made Delvon beat him, all the encouragement he would show- and sprinted for the edge, leaping and soaring up to Rhysand like it was just an extension of running.

My turn. I didn’t look at the treetops below me. That always ended badly. I stretched my wings out, flapped them a few times, just to get the feel of it right. Twigs rained down on my head. Cassian had much more purposeful aim than Rhys. 

Rhysand’s mother’s voice flitted through my head, sweet and low like honey. “Just flap your wings. The rest will be the rest.”

For her then. I’d jump for her. 

A stick hit my head. Fine. I’d jump to flap up there and throttle Cassian.

Not giving myself another second, I clenched chapped and scarred hands, and sprinted, just like they’d shown me. The edge of the rock grew alarmingly close, I beat my wings, and as the edge loomed, something wondrous snapped into place. My boots left the rock, and went up instead of down. I flapped clumsily up to them, Cassian crowing and whooping like I’d accomplished something more advanced than the average Illyrian six year old. But… I was flying, for the first time in my life, I was flying. I looked around, at the trees and mountains and air stretching open for miles, and a feeling, so crisp and raw that my mouth fell open, thundered through me. Freedom.  
…  
The memory ended, and I faltered in the sky as I came back to myself. I straightened my flight, and looked to the owner of the memory I’d just… remembered? Azriel glided beside me, and seemed content to look down over the ocean below rather than at me. I could see his red cheeks and ears, though. All the indication I could gleam he was somehow aware of our memory share.  
As we soared, I skimmed my wing over his and smiled over at him, willing him not to be embarrassed, not to lock himself away in his own head. That rush of his freedom still echoing through my magic.

He met my gaze then, I hoped whatever strange memory sharing the shadows must be giving us could send thoughts too. I dared to bank over and run my hand down his cheek before rolling into the wind, and letting it and the angle of my wings send me into a wide spiral. He swooped by, the dramatic arc enough to tell me he’d understood me loud and clear, and I gathered speed for a moment before folding my wings and shooting down past him in a streaking dive. 

I banked back up, and Azriel, a grin on his face that made my heart stutter strangely in my chest, treaded air for a moment; a full stop in the skies, and then folded his wings into a plummeting, dramatic dive of his own. 

His massive wings snapped open, and moments later he was beside me again. We flew slowly up the dark line of the Sidra, winding closer to the river house as we circled and dove around each other in the skies as we had on land. 

I was in no hurry to land. Azriel’s wing brushed mine as he flew by, affectionate and flirtatious, and joy fizzed through me. It seemed he wasn’t either.

I spiraled past him, and he hooked a wing through the draft I left in the current, circling lazily in the skies. Soaring back up to meet him, a gust of cold air hit me, the change in temperature caused me to lose a few feet in altitude, and when I corrected, one of the lovely little slippers Mor had loaned me slipped off my foot and into the open sky. 

With a strangled sound, I grasped after it, and then folded my wings to plummet to it. I was already too late, however. I heard the distant splash as it smacked into the middle of the Sidra. I looked back up to Azriel, at a complete loss for words.  
His great wings held him steady in the sky as he looked at me, and then down at the Sidra. And then he tipped his head back, and laughed. Cackled, really. I felt my own laughter bubble up at the sound despite my horror at losing one of Mor’s shoes. 

“Do you think Mor will be mad?” I asked, only half serious.

Azriel crowed with laughter again, and I decided I’d drop the other shoe into the Sidra in a heartbeat if there was any chance of making him laugh like that again.

“She might make you go shopping with her for new ones, but she won’t be angry.” 

“Win win.” I replied. “Mor’s got amazing taste.”

Azriel chuckled, and I skimmed my wing under his as I soared by.

It was amazing, how natural it felt to reach out and touch him as we flew. 

He met my eyes, and I read the same feeling there. The magic in my chest sparked. A smile, wide and honest, crept over my face as that strange golden magic seemed to settle in like a pleasant buzz in my magical senses. It occured to me abruptly that my magic was acting like this… because of Az.

Azriel’s answering smile was lit from below by the river house’s lights, and I realized we had no more excuse to stay aloft. I pushed aside my magic and it’s affinity for Azriel for later thought.  
We spiraled slowly down to the roof, and even though I was sad to be out of the open air with him, I had eaten a lot of dinner… my wings were grateful, even if I would have stayed aloft all night.

As soon as my one bare foot and one slippered foot touched the stone of the roof, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. Or my wings. I baited twice and got them to settle, meticulously folding each bone, arranging each wing perfectly and comfortably; and then I glanced at Azriel. 

He ran a hand through his wind ruffled hair, and gave me a nervous half smile. 

“Want to head in?” He asked, nodding his head to the door.

I glanced at the clock set above it we used to keep track of time during the morning workouts. Well after midnight.

“What are the chances they’re awake in there waiting for us?” 

I heard the smile in his voice as he said, “High.” 

I snorted, and he chuckled. 

The warm sound gave me the courage to lean into him, and his arm settled against my hip, his wing curving around me affectionately, like he’d been waiting for my move.

I leaned my head against his shoulder, and murmured, “Tonight was amazing.” into the collar of his shirt.

“Agreed.” he said, so quietly it was nearly a whisper.

“We should do it again sometime.” I meant for it to come out jaunty and flirty. 

It came out like a question, and Azriel rested his chin on the top of my head, tucking me a bit further into him in the process. I sighed a contented sigh and relaxed a little more.

“Yes, please.” Azriel replied, and the burst my magic gave at his words further proved my theory. 

Against my will, a yawn crept up on me, the wine and food and flying catching up with me. I felt Az smile, and then he yawned himself, jaw cracking and wings stretching out reflexively.

“We should head in.” Az murmured, and I nodded my agreement, but made no move to leave the half embrace I was relaxing in. 

Chuckling softly, Azriel shuffled us to the door, using his wings to urge me forward. I stuck my tongue out at him over my shoulder as he held the door open for me, and his wing blew my hair into my face in reply.

No one was waiting up to ambush us, which I was grateful for as we said our goodnights a bit awkwardly and headed to separate sides of the house. Did it make me strange, wishing that our rooms were closer together just so I could know he was nearby?

Getting the khol off of my eyes was an exercise in patience, and, finally makeup free, I crawled into bed, tired but still thrumming with magic and memories. It took a good long while for sleep to find me.


	12. Chapter 12

… Azriel … 

A shadow woke me from sleep with the news that the date of the meeting had been decided for three days from now. And that I was needed at the Court of Nightmares with Rhysand at first light. 

I stifled a groan and sat up, scrubbing a palm over my face and scratching absently at the stubble on my jaw. A glance outside told me it was still well before sunup. Not so long ago I had been in the air over Velaris with Vysrah. Wampth bloomed in my chest, in that strange magic there I always resolved to examine later, and I shuffled my wings at my back and padded to my closet, pulling on flight leathers and missing the warmth of my blankets. 

Why didn’t Rhysand ever have need of me at normal hours?

'Spymasters don’t keep normal hours.' A shadow quipped at my left, and I grumbled a rude reply as I moved through the motions of waking and arming up more from memory than conscious effort.  
...

Rhys was disgustingly chipper, even at five in the morning, and handed me steaming cup of tea. I grunted my thanks and sipped gratefully.

He smirked over at me, “Late night?”

“Early morning?” I shot back, with a pointed look at the bite mark just above the collar of his shirt. 

Rhysand just sipped from his mug, the angle of his brows answer enough. I grimaced, and he grinned at me. 

Tea gone, Rhysand nodded at me, and I at him, and his magic swept us up and to the Court of Nightmares. 

 

… Vysrah …

I slept until sunup, and burst onto the roof ready to pummel Azriel in several new and exciting ways, only to find Az and Rhys missing from the roof. I tucked away how crestfallen I was before Cassian could see and start smirking. 

Feyre tossed me a practice spear, and I spun it around my hand a few times to get the feel for its weight. I caught the glance she cast to Cassian, and Mor’s smothered chuckle, before Cassian and Feyre both swung at me with their own spears.

I shoved every thought away that wasn’t my next four moves, parried Feyre’s swing two handed on my spear, and pivoted to deflect Cassian’s blow as well. Cassian was grinning already, so I made sure my foot got in his way as I whirled to attack Feyre, costing him speed.

I got two blows on Feyre, two blows she easily blocked, and then Cassian had his footing behind me. When I sensed his swing reach its apex, I dropped flat to the ground, felt Cassian’s spear pass overhead by a few feet, and tangled my spear in Feyre’s legs while she was ducking Cassian’s blow meant for me. I couldn’t hold back my grin. They were sloppy this morning.  
My High Lady hit the roof, and I spun on my arms for momentum, kicking up at Cassian, and slamming my heel into the top of his thigh muscle. He cursed, his leg numbed, and I swept the other from under him, tumbling him to the roof as well. 

I lurched to my feet, breathing hard and grinning, and offered Feyre a hand up. Mor and Amren were cackling from across the roof, and I shot them a grin before Cassian’s large hand clapped my shoulder, drawing me back to the two of them.

“Quick work, Batling.” he said, and I stuck my tongue out at him as he went to get some water. 

I eyed Feyre. “Again?” I asked, and she chuckled. 

“Let someone else try to pummel you while I catch my breath.” 

I grinned, and stretched my wings and arms up and over my head in the morning sun, earning several satisfying pops from my shoulders and wing joints. 

… 

And so commenced the longest three days of my life.

No matter how many hours I seemed to work at my desk with Cassian, or winnow with him and Mor to troop outposts, it seemed like time crawled by. The weight of the meeting with the generals of the second faction in the Night Court hung over me like a guillotine.

The formality of the Court introduction the night before was an afterthought, the nobles had already made up their minds centuries ago. I was fully prepared for disaster on my own reception. But the Court of Nightmares’ generals were the males I would be working alongside if war ever came to Prythian again. Good standing with them now would make every aspect of the supply chains I wrestled with at my desk a great deal easier as well. 

So I studied map after map, reworked outposts on paper and fiddled with supply lines in hopes of having something innovative to offer to the meeting, instead of simply acting as Cassian’s shadow. 

Azriel’s absence felt like a third wing, resting just out of sight but ever present. I felt like a fool and an airhead when I found myself gazing out of windows instead of doing whatever task I’d set myself to. And I tried to ignore the strange twinge of guilt I found when I realized I was more excited about seeing Az then any of the Court of Nightmares proceedings.

A newly minted Commander in an army. Granted, that army was fully at peace, which for the moment clocked me in at a multi talented secretary, but still. Didn’t I have better things to do than daydream about a male? No matter what he did to my magic.  
…

Mor stood in the doorway of Cassian and I’s office. Evening sunlight slanted through the enormous windows, making it hard to see the ink on the page in front of me. I squinted harder. Just a few more calculations. Then I’d go and… pace the library or something.

Mor let herself in and draped herself over the arms of the chair facing my desk.

“Vysrah.” She said, and that got me to look up from my papers. I met her eyes just a tad sheepishly.

“You’re redoing the same paperwork from two days ago. Again.”

I looked innocently down at the page. “Hmmm.” was the best reply I had.

Mor’s perfectly arched brow rose towards her hairline. 

“Even Cassian is worried.” Mor ventured.

“About what?” I said to my page with two days of ink on it.

Mor sighed with exaggerated patience. “About the fact that you’ve gone numb to everything but work either over worry about the Court or about Azriel. They can’t decide which.”

I set my pen down. Ran a hand through my hair. Strait to the point. Always. 

“This official meeting is going to be a disaster.” I told her. “I’m a bastard, female, halfbreed lesser faerie, warrior, with three of five syphon’s ever awarded to any female.” I ticked the list off on my fingers. “A short list of everything they hate.”

Mor shrugged. “They’re always some degree of disaster anyway. And they hate all of us already.”

I sighed through my nose, and Mor said, “But that’s not all that’s bothering you.”

I looked at my desk, strained thoughts swirling. 

Finally, I managed, “Is it… right for me to even want to be with Azriel?”

Mor’s eyebrows shot together.

I pushed on. I’d started saying it, no point in stopping now. 

“I’ve been here just over two months. My first post, first position, and I go moon eyed over a male before half a year passes?” 

Mor took a deep breath, and the air felt heavier around my shoulders, my wings. Truth. The Morrigan, not my shopping partner, addressed me. Met my eyes. The hair on my arms rose.

“You are here because of your skill. Your power. Your intellect. Cassian saw a diamond in the rough and honed it.” Her warm brown eyes met mine, and I found I couldn’t drop her gaze as she finished. “But what you do here, who you spend time with, that’s your business. It’s entirely up to you. You are an equal amongst us, no matter what happens at the Court of Nightmares or with Azriel. No one has the right to an opinion on it but you.”

Like a cord being cut, she dropped my gaze, her magic receding from the room like an invisible tide. I took a deep breath.

Mor’s lips twitched to the side. “I met Jesna on a diplomatic mission to the Winter Court. She said, “Nice to meet you.” to me and I passed out cold in front of a banquet of two hundred faeries.”

I found myself smiling, and Mor said, serious again, “We don’t get to pick the timing, or the setting. Feyre and Rhys met at the start of the biggest war in five centuries. You make it work as you go.”

She stood, looking to the clock in the corner. “Now go and do something that isn’t paperwork. You’re making the rest of us look lazy.” 

I relented, stowing my papers and pen and following Mor out of the study, still percolating through Mor’s words. I tried to ignore the quip from Nualla that I looked to be coming out of a cave; and soon I was crossing the footbridge over the Sidra and heading into Velaris proper. The neat buildings glowed golden in the setting sun, and already in the darkest part of the sky stars glowed brightly. I tucked my hands into my pockets and fanned my wings, catching the last of the day’s warmth.

Twenty minutes of determined window shopping and a cup of spiced tea later and I was bored. I needed something to do. Not just wander around the city or reroute already efficient supply lines. Something constructive. That third wing flexed itself, and I pushed away the thought that this was the time we usually met to fly a bit before dinner.

Still churning over Mor’s words, I walked a bit faster. My business. My choice. Words nearly unheard of in the stratified system the Illyrians were content to put themselves through.   
Something to do. Feyre’s last painting class of the day ended hours ago, they’d be done cleaning by now, the shop closed for the night. I didn’t feel like painting anyway. Too sedentary. I wandered the Quarters for another few minutes, until I found myself at the border between shopping and residential districts. A familiar, brightly lit roof glowed like a beacon, and the memory of Cariad and it’s volunteers and Illyrian women directed my foot falls to the broad, green painted door.

I found myself hesitating on the doorstep. How did I…

Before I could make up my mind whether or not to knock, the door was opened briskly by an Illyrian female nearly a foot shorter than me.

She looked me up and down, noted my wings, and asked, “Do you need a room?”

I blinked for a moment before I realized what she was asking. “Oh! No. I was hoping to… volunteer?”

She nodded and waved me in, businesslike and efficient, leading me through the first story and to the kitchen. I learned why she was moving so quickly when we reached the end of the hallway, and I tried not to gawp at the cavernous, riotously busy kitchen room. 

Illyrian females, all ages, all heights, bustled through the kitchen; chopping massive piles of vegetables, toting plates, barking orders… enormous pans and pots sat bubbling and attended to, dishes were being washed by someone’s magic along the deep sinks in the back of the room, and all the while, dishes and plates of food were loaded and disappeared up the dumbwaiter to the roof. I blinked a few times to take it all in, the sights and smells and sounds forming a near overwhelming cacophony. 

I thought for a moment the room looked like a battle, and then discarded the notion. The chaotic, cavernous room was bustling with its own, precise organization. Tightly wound and ticking like clockwork. No one bumped into each other carrying dishes, no one accidentally caught their wing against anyone else’s. Everyone had a task, and was seeing to it with an efficiency I’d only seen Illyrian women master.

The woman leading me gave me a half smile. “Everyone makes that face when they see the kitchen when it’s full. Don’t worry, we need someone to get plates to the dumbwaiter, nothing fancy.”

I let her think my shift in demeanor was relief, the reality was I wanted to know how this place worked. What would a war camp that ran this efficiently look like? How did they all know what to do? 

“I’m Elhra,” she said over her shoulder, “nice to meet you.” and was gone into the belly of stoves and ovens that made up the majority of the space before I could tell her my own name.

Thirty minutes passed in a hot blurr. I shuffled steaming plates laden with food from the cooks to the dumbwaiter, and unloaded the cool ones from the returning one and got it to the sink; where someone’s clever spell work plucked them out of my hands, soapy water enveloping them and spitting them out shining in an ever growing and diminishing pile for the cooks and others to grab as they needed. An hour passed, and I was fully convinced the clever pattern the residents of Cariad had worked out to organize themselves was genius.

A rotating schedule of names and stations was copied to a wall well away from any steam in chalk. A female need simply find her name, and she knew what she was doing, and who with. Simple. Elegant. Effective. It took away any hierarchy, as names were reshuffled and places reassigned. Nightly, I assumed. 

I didn’t talk much through the dinner rush, I just relayed plates to the dumbwaiter, a nebulous, radical idea beginning to spin into form in the back of my mind. I gave it room, the dinner rush just the unforgiving, repetitive rhythm I needed to finally, finally shake off that small lingering guilt. The words my business, my choice echoing over and over again as time flew, and plate after plate after plate found its way to the dumbwaiter. And if I didn’t yet know my choice? I had a feeling Mor would find that just as fine an answer as any other. The thought left me clear headed, like a fog had rolled back from my mood, my thoughts. 

Hours later, when orders stopped coming in, and all the dishes and knives were cleaned and polished, and the leftover food passed around, I sat in a laughing circle of Illyrian women, relaxed and comfortable. Despite the late hour, and the tiredness in my arms and my legs, I was the kind of awake that made things seem richer; fire warmer, tea spicier. The curling smoke from more than a few pipes didn’t help matters.

As the conversation got quieter, less jovial and more serious, it wandered, as all Illyrian thoughts tend to do, towards the mountains. Blasted, cold peaks, home to a barren, cold people. But this warm, laughing group was proof enough of that false narrative. 

Equal stakes. That’s what the war camp Illyrians needed. Not to rely on females for their drudgery, but an equal share in pitching tents and cooking meals. I’d long thought it. But the How had always been the issue. How to get the stubborn, near feral males of Illyria to condescend to wash their own leathers.

A structure. Illyrian society was built on millenia of nomadic mountain survival, and of near constant inter clan warfare. Now, while still fractious, the clans had been united into a semi nation of Illyria under Rhysand’s control. That left the dangers faced by past Illyrians; brutal inter clan raids, starvation, isolation from vital goods, not quite as pressing, and in the relaxing of the fist of war over Illyria, malcontent, even malicious boredom festered in the cracks. 

Wing clippings were making a resurgence. One of the youngest women at our circle said it to the fire in our center rather than meet our eyes. I kept my face carefully blank when I noticed one of her wings drooped- like it couldn’t hold it’s weight.

Wing clipping had always been an act of violence, but before, it had been surgical, precise violence. Made to mark a female out as chosen. This new spate of wing clippings was not so… neat. It felt like a retaliation. A sickening brutalization and example against females gaining a scrap of anything like freedom from servitude. 

Wrecked wings. Torn and left to heal badly. A symbol of that festering hate in Illyria that Rhysand’s sheer might couldn’t extinguish. How much would they revile us when they needed to make dinner? The thought had me smiling a crooked smile. 

A camp system set up something like this kitchen might nullify some of that retaliatory hatred. I turned it over and over in my mind like a jeweler inspecting a gem. It would at least break the deadlock in the tribes, a first step. Giving... forcing, the males to take stake in their own survival, not just their battle readiness; the idea was sound… enacting it, and enforcing it, on the tribes would would be another rat’s nest entirely.

It was nearly one in the morning by the time I made it back to my quiet room in the River House. I fell asleep with reworked Illyrian camp ideas dancing behind my eyelids.  
…   
I slept through dawn practice. I was still snoring quietly when Cassian began howling outside my door for me to come to breakfast. It took me mid way through breakfast to remember what day it was. I choked on my bite of egg.

Mor snickered from three seats away, and Cassian drawled, “We were wondering how long it would take you to remember.”

I took a sip of my water sheepishly.

Mor’s eyes were twinkling as she said, “A night of dancing will do that to you.”

“Dancing?” I asked flatly.

Mor rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “Don’t tell me. I send you out into the City of Starlight for an evening and you didn’t go dancing?”

Feyre snorted into her tea mug.

I gave Mor a rueful half smile, and she gestured at me with a bite of waffle. “What did you do then?”

“Nosy this morning, Mor?” Cassian slid behind her in the conversation with practiced ease.

She stuck her tongue out at him, and turned her attention back to me.

“I went to Cariad.”

Feyre looked at Mor like she’d just won a round of cards, and Mor stuck her tongue out at Feyre too.

“They needed someone to carry plates to the dumbwaiter.” I said, and reached for a chocolate pastry.

“We sent you to take a break from work and you somehow find more work to do; how Illyrian of you.” said Amren over a slice of dry toast. 

I shrugged at her. “What were you expecting?”

A quirk of her brow was her only response. So I went back to my breakfast.

… Azriel … 

Three days spent in the Court of Nightmares was exactly as tedious and enraging as expected when I’d drawn the short stick on the toss up between Cassian and I. And knowing what waited at the end did not ease matters. Vysrah. Down here. The thought made me seethe. 

So I spent three days calling up every shadow in the Court of Nightmares and scouring them for information. The exercise as much of a distraction as it was spywork.

Rhys spent three days terrifying everyone to varying degrees- magic and sheer attitude; I would have thought it might amuse him, but bags were forming under his eyes. 

I was ready for moonlight. Sunlight. Anything but the feeble blue glow worms crammed into jars the sight impaired needed to haul around in this pile of rubble. Too long in the dark. Too long not being able to tell shadow from darkness. Cold, clammy memory was easing it’s way out from where I slammed it. I’d woken this morning and for three- exactly three heartbeats- I’d been Before. 

Glow worms. Glow worms with me at all times. The stupid things a reminder that this darkness was not a prison, not one, particular prison. I wondered at Rhysand spending all this time underground. We’d only visited for evenings since Rhys’s own imprisonment. I stopped wondering about the bags under his eyes. I probably had some of my own. It was almost over. And yet the last hurdle was sure to be the worst. Vysrah. Down here.

… Vysrah …  
Mor’s winnowing felt like being sucked through a wind tunnel, and in my new, wonderful, mostly metal armor, I sucked in a grateful breath when my boots hit the gravel pathway at the base of a menacing mountain. My largest syphon flashed deep purple from my chest, my other two set into the scaled armor on my hands. 

Screeching mountain wind lashed my braid off my shoulder. So like the wind of Illyria, but… off somehow. I looked to Cassian. He frowned at the mountain and it’s door like an opponent. Mor, in a gauzy cherry red dress I was surprised she wasn’t shivering in, looked just as grim.

“Let’s get this over with.” 

Cassian managed a smirk at me, and we strode into The Court of Nightmares.


	13. Chapter 13

Darkness more complete than blackest night swallowed us whole. The howling wind choked off so suddenly I missed it compared with the tomb like stillness of the tunnel we walked through in the dark. 

Cassian cleared his throat pointedly, and Mor seemed to remember we were blind in the dark, sending a few fae lights bobbing out and around us to light our way.

My mouth fell open at what they illuminated. What I’d assumed was a tunnel through rock was a causeway over open space, stories and stories into the air, arching and connecting to a polished black city. Polished black marble caught the faelight, giving glimmering suggestions of levels and levels of buildings spiraling around the outer wall of the mountain and meeting by way of hundreds of arching bridges and causeways to a central city rising straight from the bedrock as if someone had planted it there like a great black marble tree. 

I stayed quiet on our walk to the throne room. Malease stalked behind me. The air felt… wrong. No breeze blew, no air currents played across my wings. I felt as though I’d lost a sense I wasn’t aware of having. The reality of hundreds of tons of rock overhead didn’t ease the sensation. I fanned my wings in the dark, the disturbingly still air nearly unnoticeable against the movement. 

Despite the many levels and glimmers of arches I saw rising through the darkness, there were no faeries, no High Fae to be seen anywhere, not even the sounds of footsteps on marble that we made. It was as if we were the only ones alive down here. My skin crawled. 

I was so grateful for the pinprick of light that appeared as we rounded a bend that I forgot my dread of what was to come for relief at the sight of faelight beyond our own bubble. That relief quickly fizzled away as serpentine carvings loomed out of the darkness, strange drum beats became audible more from feeling then true sound. Under my armor, every hair on my body trembled on high alert, my magic roiling. 

My first view through the massive black doors into the massive black room that held the Court of Nightmares was Rhysand. It couldn’t be anything else. Every damper he had on his power for polite company was gone. He bled power; magical energy so intense rays of night drifted around him. It was like the wonder of a clear night sky but a thousand times concentrated. And beside him sat the woman who had brought him back from the dead. A crown on her head and wicked smile on her face. 

When my knees hit the marble along with everyone else in my company, I was grateful to give them a break from feeling like they might fall out from under me. Mor and Cassian and I stood back up, and Rhysand’s voice, smooth as a cat, drawled, “Lieutenant Vysrah.”

I stepped forward, and allowed one knee to hit the marble again with my right fist clenched over my heart and head bowed. Practiced, rehearsed steps I was grateful for in the cavernous room of onlookers. I counted carefully, rose on que, and turned to the wider room. Many more high fae were gathered than I’d estimated. 

Rhysand’s voice intoned, “The court.”

I bowed my head again, and only a few of the assembled bothered to return the gesture at all. I turned back to my High Lord. Rhysand nodded once, and the music continued from unseen musicians, and Cassian shuffled me to an alcove out of the middle of the cavernous room. 

I blew out a grateful exhale, and rolled my shoulders. The most wrenching part was done. Now it was a countdown to the end of the night. 

Mor appeared in a swish of blood red skirts with flutes filled with bubbling, pale amber liquid. There were no smiles, not down here; everyone projected a lazy menace I couldn’t manage. I sipped from my glass and surveyed the cavernous space. And it’s inhabitants.

Not one splash of color marred the uniform black of everyone’s clothes. Not one brunette head in the crowd. Everyone was paper pale, some, disturbingly, right down to their irises. No sunlight had ever touched their skin, it was as if all the pigment had bled out of them. Or they had bred it out. Chilled, I sipped my drink again and turned my attentions to the wider room. To one end, a banquet table sat heaped with food of every kind, every variety, all of it untouched, no one even lingered nearby. The walls, what was illuminated by fae lights, writhed with carvings. Dragons, great coiled, snarling beasts entwined end over end, eyes staring out from the walls like guardians.

I had finished my survey of every alert guard, and was idly listening to Mor and Cassian say nothing to each other in the sniping conversation patterns used down here and wishing I was drunker. I tried not to search the room for Azriel. 

I watched Feyre hone her art of terrifying people through eye contact alone for at least fifteen minutes before the urge to pace hit like an itch I couldn’t scratch. There was no way to tell time down here. No way to tell how many minutes- or hours- passed. 

People wound around each other in carefully choreographed circles, not dancing, but not just talking either, as partners switched and rhythms shifted. I fought to keep from tapping my foot. Couldn’t we just meet with the generals now and be done? 

I noted the few people in the crowd with armor, albeit empty scabbards, and identified them as the four generals of tomorrow’s meeting. I itched to do something. But they wound through the crowd of viper’s smiles, and I watched it unfold, the power dynamics slowly becoming apparent through little tells. A shifting shoulder, a flick of white hair, no movement was accidental or incidental. I wanted to bang my head against the alcove wall. But I held still, tried to put on that mask of indifference they’d all honed to perfection.

A flicker of air by my left wing was my warning as Azriel materialized from the shadows. 

“You look bored to tears.” he observed, like he hadn’t just materialized from thin air as I thought of him.

My head was as blank as a new sheet of paper for fifteen seconds as I took in Azriel in full armor, all seven siphons glinting in the dim light. Like Rhysand, he had relaxed the dampers on his power, and coils of shadows formed and reformed around him, twice as numerous and opaque then normal.

“Only to sniffles.” I replied, and lifted my glass to drink from only to find it empty.

I could feel his amusement, even though he kept his face blank. “The first joke I’ve heard in three days,” he mused, and produced a flask from thin air. “I’ll drink to that.” 

A smile curved my face before I could remember to stifle it, and liquor hit the table where Azriel missed his pour. I bit down on my lip to keep from grinning. 

A grateful few sips later, Azriel, more talkative than I’d ever seen him, offered, “I’ve been released from terrorizing duty, I figured I’d come keep you company.”

Yes, my duties for this trip were much less active than terrorizing the nobles. Watch. Observe. Understanding why and being content to stand for hours in a corner were two separate tasks. Not that I really wanted to be thrust into the mass of vipers circling each other on the polished marble floors either. 

“The wall I was about to hit my head against thanks you.” I drawled to him, and thoroughly enjoyed watching him try and smother his chuckle with a cough. 

I glanced out over the pale crowd. Mor and Cassian were easy to find; a wide gap persisted between them and the Mountain nobles, and those near them moved tensely. 

I took another drink, “Is there anyone down here worth meeting?” I asked.

Azriel raised an eyebrow and cast his eyes out over the crowd for a moment before shrugging and saying, “You’ll meet the generals tomorrow. And they’re barely worth the flight up here. Everyone else is much more tolerable from a distance.”

“What about the non nobles?” I pressed. “They can’t all be despicable.”

“There are no non-nobles. Everyone is required to descend from an ancient bloodline to exist down here.” His voice was a low rumble, gentle compared with the implication of his words.  
To exist. Not just reside down here. But exist at all. Ice in my very common blooded veins, I finished my drink.

“I can’t wait to get out of here.” I confided.

A flicker in my chest told me how deeply Azriel agreed. 

He poured us both more of whatever was in that flask, and we settled in to wait for Rhysand to declare our visit at an end. Trying to look gloriously bored and actually being horrendously bored was a challenge I wrestled with for forty five minutes or three hours. There was no way to tell.

Holding myself away from Azriel was a different task. We seemed to keep meeting in the middle. It was hard to look aloof when I wanted to brush against him like a happy cat.  
I thought I had better self control than this, but keeping myself still, keeping my face still, in such an unnerving place, with the riot of questions and emotions swirling through me, was an act of iron will.

Finally, I noticed the crowd dwindling, and finally, Rhysand stood. He stretched like a satisfied panther, and Feyre gave the remaining crowd one last ‘do it, I dare you’ glare before they both started for the doorway like lovers on a Sunday stroll. Cassian and Mor fell into line behind them, coming from opposite sides of the great room and falling into a menacing wall between the High couple and the Court. I had to lengthen my stride to keep in step with Azriel, and I got the feeling he would have sprinted if he could have, just to be free from this place faster; we fell in line, one last wall of shadows and menace guarding our High couple’s backs.

It was a long walk back up to the surface. No one could winnow through the magic fortifications, and the ceilings were too low to fly. A few summoned fae lights lit our way out, and despite my haste to get to open air, I couldn’t help noting the intricately carved pillars and archways that emerged briefly from the gloom before disappearing back into the blackness. I wondered what this place looked like if you could see in the dark.

A bluish glow finally became discernable ahead from the gloom, and I let a grin slide onto my face. That small action felt like a relief on it’s own. I looked over at Azriel, but I could only truly make out the glint of his wing claws, and the vague shape of his broad shoulders. I wished I knew what he was thinking.   
...


End file.
